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  • From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] *FRI JUNE 26/Sustainable World Radio Interview with Tara Blasco & Lyn Hebenstreit of GRA Tanzania
  • Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:55:40 -0700

Friday, JUNE 26, 9-10am, Sustainable World Radio
Interview with Tara Blasco and Lyn Hebenstreit
of Global Resource Alliance in Tanzania
on Sustainable World Radio, KCSB 91.9 FM PST
also streaming live on www.kcsb.org, interviews posted later on www.sustainableworldradio.com

Join Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio for an interview with Tara Blasco and Lyn Hebenstreit of Global Resource Alliance (GRA, http://globalresourcealliance.org/) working in the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania with natural, holistic and sustainable programs in water (primary water), permaculture, AIDS orphan support, education, malaria prevention, micro-finance and more.

Joining Jill in studio will be Wes Roe and Margie Bushman of Santa Barbara Permaculture Network who first connected with Lyn and Tara when organizing a conference in Santa Barbara called Permaculture & Sustainable Aid for the 21st Century in July 2006. Both Santa Barbara Permaculture Network and Global Resource Alliance Tanzania will be attending and participating in the upcoming International Permaculture Conference in Malawi, Africa in November 2009 (www.ipc9.org).


More Info/Resources/Websites:

Global Resource Alliance (GRA)

GRA is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) organization http://globalresourcealliance.org/ dedicated to bringing hope, joy and abundance to the world's most impoverished regions. By sharing ideas, volunteers and financial resources with local, community based organizations we seek to promote natural, holistic and sustainable solutions to the challenges of poverty, malnutrition and disease. The inspiration and leadership for our work comes from the communities we serve. We believe that empowering local communities to address pressing social, economic and environmental challenges according to their own vision and their own creative potential is the key to lasting solutions

All GRA's programs and projects are designed and implemented in collaboration with local residents and organizations through a process called Community Participatory Development, where all residents are represented and claim a stake in the positive outcome of projects.




Lyn Hebenstreit
Lyn founded Global Resource Alliance (GRA) in April, 2002 after being invited to work as a volunteer finance and accounting consultant for Foundation HELP, Tanzania - a small NGO on the shores of Lake Victoria. Prior to that, he owned and operated an industrial sewing machine company, served as Chief Financial Officer for a manufacturing firm and, for the past 15 years, has served as an accounting and database consultant for many small businesses and non-profit organizations in Ojai, California.


Tara María Blasco
Tara coordinates GRA programs related to alternative health, malaria prevention, education and orphans support and has been involved with the organization as a volunteer since 2003 and has served on the Board of Directors since 2004.
She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a specialty in prenatal and birth psychology from Santa Barbara Graduate Institute
Presently, Tara lives in California with her husband Lyn Hebenstreit and co-directs the Ojai Wisdom Center.

<<<>>>

Upcoming Event:
Fundraiser
Sunday June 28, 2009 12pm-5pm Water for Live GRA Event Ojai Retreat, 106 Besant Road, Ojai, CA

Global Resource Alliance is holding an event on June 28th from 12-5pm at the Ojai Retreat. We'll be providing a delicious complimentary lunch and refreshments. We'll have live music and screen two new short films about our programs in the Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania. One of the films is about our water project that has already brought water to thousands of people who do not have access to clean, safe water. We hope you can make it!

We will be raising money with a silent auction that features a beautiful collection of Beatrice Wood pottery. We have also had several donations of healing services, products and art and would like to offer even more. This is where we could use your help! I've attached a donor form for the silent auction in case you are so moved to donate an item. Your donation is 100% tax deductable and 100% of auction proceeds will go to programs benefiting impoverished communities in Tanzania.
Thank you very much for your consideration to donate to our auction. Please come have lunch, socialize, bid and learn more about GRA's natural, holistic and sustainable programs in water, AIDS orphan support, education, permaculture, malaria prevention, microfinance and more on June 28th!


Water Resource Development: Primary Water

Water is essential to overcoming hunger, poverty and disease, yet worldwide, more than one billion people still lack access to safe drinking water. Five million people, mostly children, die each year from water-borne diseases - double the number of deaths caused by AIDS. Some 60% of all infant mortality is linked to infectious and parasitic diseases, most of them water-related.
In December 2003, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the years 2005 - 2015 to be the International Decade for Action, "Water for Life" - an international drive to bring safe water and basic sanitation to communities around the world. The goal set by the <http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/index.htm>UN Millennium Project is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.


GRA has responded to the call by initiating a bold and unconventional water resource development project called "Maji Mengi" (Abundant Water). Utilizing innovative techniques developed by the late Stephan Riess, of Ojai, CA, we will begin drilling boreholes and developing wells in communities throughout the Mara region of Tanzania suffering from severe water shortages. The project's leader, Pal Pauer, is a protégée of Riess with over thirty years experience locating and tapping the abundant, crystalline water found in fractured primary rock.


Kinesi, a village of 5,000 residents in the Tarime district of Tanzania, will be the first site developed beginning September, 2007. Residents presently use polluted, untreated water from Lake Victoria for drinking, bathing, cooking, irrigation and laundry. Clean, safe water will not only dramatically reduce the incidence of cholera, typhoid, dysentery, schistosomaisis and other parasitic infections, but also demonstrate the potential of "earth generated" water to enhance the quality of life in communities currently without access to safe sources of water.
About Primary Water
Primary water is created within the Earth's interior and travels toward the surface via fissures and fractures in primary rock. It is accessed by drilling directly into bedrock, often at depths of just 150 to 300 feet. Also referred to as new, juvenile, or earth-generated water, discussions of primary water can be found in modern literature, although it is not generally recognized by the hydrological community. It's potential to ameliorate the world's growing water crisis remains largely unrealized.
Evidence of primary water comes from a variety of sources. Natural springs, for instance, can be found throughout the world that have been producing thousands of gallons of pure, fresh water per minute continuously since biblical times. Many of these, like the Fountain of Apollo in Libya and the Ain Feigh in Syria, have seeded civilizations. Others, like the giant spring gushing from solid granite in Kings Canyon National Park, are merely wonders of nature.
In addition to these naturally occurring springs, primary water is often encountered accidentally when tunneling through rock for mines, roadways or waterways - even at high elevations, far above any drainage basin. The famous Comstock silver mine on the Eastern slope of Mt. Davidson near Nevada City, for example, pumped over 5 million gallons a day out of flooded mineshafts until the pumps failed and the mine was closed in 1886. In the 1950's water was struck tunneling through the Santa Ynez Mountains in Santa Barbara that flowed at over 13 million gallons a day. Construction was halted until the gushing fissure could be sealed.
Many castles in Europe, built hundreds of years ago on high rocky promontories, have wells hand hewn in solid rock that have been producing fresh, pure water non-stop for centuries. More recently, in the past ten years, exploration projects in Sudan, Somalia and the West Indies islands of Trinidad and Tobago have successfully tapped the abundant water locked in fractured bedrock. By defying conventional hydrological wisdom, an innovative engineering company was able to obtain yields of up to 50 times that estimated by the "experts", at a fraction of the cost of other alternatives.
Utilizing techniques perfected over many decades of experience, GRA's primary water project will demonstrate practical, economical approaches to locating and tapping the Earth's abundant water to meet the needs of communities suffering from severe water shortages.


-end-
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] Beginning Farmer Rates, Make Land Affordable
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Hum... This is very interesting. I am trying to capitalize our farm
right now for a csa we are starting. Do you know if there are any loan
programs like this offered to beginning farmers for equipment? (i.e.
chisel or yeomans plow, tractors, bed makers, tine cultivators, etc.)

Best,
Johnathan Yelenick
Blacktail Permaculture
South Platte River Watershed of the Short Grass Steppe Prairie Bioregion
Beginning Farmer Rates Make Land Affordable
USDA is offering big benefits to beginning farmers: Who else can
qualify for 1.5 percent, 20-year fixed interest rates on a big chunk
of any farm mortgage? No, that's not a typo. The Farm Service Agency's
Down Payment Program for beginning or limited resource farmers may be
the best deal in decades for someone interested in buying land at the
moment.

"That's the best rate I've ever seen for a USDA loan program, and I've
worked in farm credit for 27 years," says Greg Beachy with Farm Credit
Services of Mid-America in Louisville, serving Ohio, Indiana,
Tennessee and Kentucky. Borrowers who've stumbled onto the offer are
already backlogged, but he expects a surge of applicants as word
spread. "USDA really is looking for ways to get young people into
farming," he tells me.

Thanks to the 2008 farm bill, minimum rates on USDA's entry-level Down
Payment Program loans were lowered from 4 percent to 1.5 percent, just
in time to ride the wave of rock-bottom Treasury costs that collapsed
last fall. The deal won't last forever, though, as Treasury rates are
beginning to climb again and the wait list for USDA's matching funds
is growing. So study up.

A beginner is defined as someone with less than 10 years of farming
experience and who has a substantial interest in the operation. What
they qualify for is pretty special:

The borrower must pay at least a 5 percent down payment on a property;
FSA will fund up to 45 percent of a $500,000 purchase ($225,000
maximum) at its subsidized interest rates with a loan term of 20
years; commercial lenders who finance the balance of the mortgage must
stretch amortization 30 years. Realistically, that means the borrower
will pay a blend of 1.5 percent interest on 45 percent of a loan and
possibly about 7.7 percent (a typical rate today for a high risk
borrower) on the remainder.

FSA says 400 borrowers have been approved for the program so far this
year, up from 30 this time a year ago. But funds have been depleted
fast, and Congress will not authorize more money until the fiscal year
begins next Oct. 1, at the earliest.

As a result, Phil Kimmel, Farm Credit Services of Mid-America senior
vice president for credit, worries that some real estate purchases may
fall through without some extra help from private lenders. "We are
considering a position to offer bridge financing based on FSA's
commitment until funds are available, but we haven't done that yet. We
have provided bridge loans for FSA's portion if we could get security
or maybe a parent to cosign until the money is available," Kimmel
says.

All Farm Credit institutions are required by law to lend a certain
percent of their funds to young, beginning and small farmers. In 2008,
young farmers under 35 made up 26 percent of FCS of Mid-America's new
loans or leases, and beginning farmers about 40 percent of that
portfolio.

Rates change periodically on FSA's loan programs; for details see

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/?

? Copyright 2009 DTN. All rights reserved.

Posted at 08:31 AM CDT, June 11, 2009 by Marcia Zarley Taylor




  • [permaculture] *FRI JUNE 26/Sustainable World Radio Interview with Tara Blasco & Lyn Hebenstreit of GRA Tanzania, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 06/23/2009

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