From: Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson <lakinroe@silcom.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [permaculture] INTERNATIONAL NATURAL BUILDING CONVERGENCE September 3rd-October 15th, 2002
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:12:32 -0700
INTERNATIONAL NATURAL
BUILDING CONVERGENCE
September 3rd-October 15th, 2002
An exciting event is in the works. In
collaboration with a network of North American natural builders,
Kleiwerks is organizing an International Natural Building Convergence.
Grassroots activists and local leaders will be coming together from
Argentina, Thailand, Kenya Brazil and Ghana for six weeks to focus on
practical ecological solutions to basic housing needs. This is an
opportunity for pioneers of the sustainable living movement to build
relationships, share knowledge and establish support
networks.
The Convergence will begin with the 10 Day Training in the Art of
Natural Building in Asheville, North Carolina and conclude with the
Natural Building Colloquium in Oregon. Participants will visit sites
that are on the cutting edge of the natural building and sustainable
living movement. Affordable, durable and locally available natural
materials such as mud, straw, bamboo and stone will be used in hands-on
projects. Innovative and traditional techniques include adobe, strawclay,
cob, earthen finishes and passive solar design.
The Convergence will empower participants to share and adapt these skills
within their local communities. Upon returning to their respective
countries participants will host trainings, reaching hundreds of people
thanks to their involvement with existing grassroots networks. This group
of visionaries and teachers have specifically been invited because they
have already shown a remarkable ability to create positive change. Please
see attached bios.
The time is ripe for more sustainable living. We wish to honor, support
and connect the people who are helping this to become a reality. Each of
them lives with very little money and they are rarely financially
compensated for their commitment to improving the well-being of their
communities as well as the Earths. For this reason we are inspired
to raise the scholarships to cover their airfare and all other expenses
during the duration of the Convergence.
Please join us in supporting this important project by sending your
contribution to Janell Kapoor, I.N.B.C. Scholarship Fund, 80 ½
Cumberland Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801
Time is of the essence. We thank you in advance.
Janell Kapoor,
janell@kleiwerks.com
Max Edleson,
max@intermax.net Co-organizers of the
Convergence
For more information about the Convergence sponsors, participants,
itinerary and budget please read on.
Sponsors The hosting organizations include Kleiwerks Natural Building,
Southeast Ecological Design, Cob Cottage Company, North American School
of Natural Building, Earthaven Ecovillage, Sequatchie Valley Institute,
Lama Foundation, The EcoVersity, City Repair Project, Builders Without
Borders, Mountain Gardens, Aprovecho and Lost Valley Permaculture
Institute.
Itinerary September 3-5Arrival and Introductions in Asheville, North Carolina
September 6-15Kleiwerks 10 Day Training in the Art of Natural
Building September 16-24Tour of Sustainable Living and Natural Building Sites
in the Asheville Area: Earthaven Ecovillage, Sequatchie Valley
Institute, Mountain Gardens September 24 -October 1Tour of Sustainable Living and Natural
Building Sites in Northern New Mexico: Lama Foundation, La Madera,
Taos Pueblos, Earthships, The Ecoversity October 1-6Tour of Sustainable Living and Natural Building Sites in
Oregon: Cob Cottage Company, Lost Valley Permaculture Institute,
Aprovecho, Rob Bolman, City Repair Project October 6-11Natural Building Colloquium in Medford,
Oregon
October 12-14Closing Evaluation
October 15Return Home
Budget (per person) Funds needed to support this project:
International
Flights
$1200
Domestic
Flights
$400
Kleiwerks 10 Day
Training
$600
Natural Building
Colloquium
$100
Meals and Lodging ($15/day; 25 days) $375
Van Rental and
Gasoline
$100
Translation and Logistical Support
$525
----
Total
$3300
Working List of Prospective Participants
ARGENTINA is in the throes of one of the most spectacular modern
financial and political meltdowns. For this reason, permaculture, natural
building techniques, and living from the land not only offer themselves
as interesting options but increasingly are becoming an essential part of
everyday life.
CARLOS STRAUB is a permaculturist and inventor extraordinaire. He
has been a leading member of CIESA, a center for research and education
of sustainable agriculture in El Bolson, for the last seven years. He
gives many organic gardening workshops in Patagonia and throughout
Argentina. He is a certified permaculture designer and is being called
upon increasingly to give workshops on the subject. Carlos is rebuilding
an old grain mill that will allow the people in his valley to
cooperatively buy grain in bulk and mill it into flour at a much more
affordable price. He also leads the seed saving initiative in his region,
running a small home-business and sharing his knowledge through talks and
personal interactions. He has extensive mechanic skills and has built
many greenhouses, composting toilets and other structures.
JORGE BELANCO is a builder and mason. His octagonal house is
a marvel of permaculture design. A greenhouse wraps around three
sides. He built and installed a small turbine in the canal that
runs through its property to generate electricity, built a solar cooker,
and several solar dryers. He recently built a small workshop in the
wattle and daub style and a trout hatchery for his trout pond using a
modified straw-clay technique. Two of his trademarks, which he has built
and installed in many households in El Bolson, are the thermally
efficient Russian heating stove and a similarly very efficient and
affordable adobe oven built around a 55-gallon oil drum. Jorge is
considered a permaculture maestro and is often collaborating on
permaculture projects, teaching courses and always sharing his knowledge.
He was an avid member of the local humanist party and has now become a
charismatic leader in the evolving barter system which has become his
valley's dominant social and economic structure.
CHILE is a country of extraordinary natural diversity whose
riches- its forests, arable land, mountains and seas- are being mined at
completely unsustainable rates. A healthier relationship with the earth,
which Chile's indigenous people have practiced for millennia, is sorely
needed and being sought for by activists and progressive leaders.
BLANCA ROSA brought together several families, 25 years ago, to
form a community on a barren piece of land on the outskirts of Santiago.
As a Waldorf teacher, she set up a small community school and led a
revegetation effort, planting native trees, fruit trees, and gardens to
grow the community's own food. More and more families came to join the
community. The once barren land is now one of Santiago's most attractive
neighborhood. Blanca has spent the last decade working as a
permaculture designer and consultant. In the last two years, she
has dedicated most of her time to the establishment of a permaculture
institute in the Ecuadorian jungle. The centers main goal is to help the
local community to stop selling their trees for income. They are
developing and demonstrating ways to grow food in the jungle as well as
build shelters in a natural and sustainable way.
PAULINA AVILA is a musician, artist, and activist. She has worked
extensively in her community of Con Con, Chile to establish community
gardens. Over the last two years, she has worked with Blanca Rosa at her
center in Ecuador. She teaches organic and has experimented in building
with bamboo. She continues her efforts to explore and establish cottage
industries for the Tikawasy community that would make them more
independent from their lumber-related incomes. At the center, she also
has a drum and didgeridoo-making workshop to raise funds for the
organization.
THAILAND is experiencing many of the classic symptoms of
modernization and globalization: large foreign debts, rampant
prostitution, villagers leaving their origins to try their luck in the
city and rapid environmental degradation. In response, communities and
grassroots networks are increasingly organizing themselves to find
human-scale solutions to these modern ills and returning to a more
environmentally, as well as culturally, sustainable way of living.
JO JANDAI, inspired by his visit to the Taos Pueblos while
bicycling through New Mexico, returned to his village in one of
Thailands poorest regions to introduce friendlier, more affordable
building techniques. In the past year, Jo has become Thailands leading
advocate and educator of adobe construction. He has been busily running
workshops throughout Thailand, training community groups to build with
appropriate alternatives to costly concrete construction. Jo has
dedicated his life to sharing such simple, small-scale solutions in order
to demonstrate the possibility of independence from the ever-growing
pressures of modernization and globalization. He reaches thousands,
including a growing number of Westerners, through a widespread grassroots
network he helped to get started. Jo has also helped to establish
successful cooperative models amongst organic rice farmers. For many
years he has run an educational permaculture farm where he teaches, as
well as grows and harvests his entire food supply.
KENYAs familiesare increasingly at risk of poverty,
malnutrition and famine. More than a third of the people live in
absolute poverty, surviving on less than one dollar per day. In the
midst of these enormous obstacles, there have been some outstanding
success stories which have helped thousands.
JOSHUA AMWAI MACHINGA is the project coordinator of Common
Ground Program. Through gleaning produce, he has helped provide food
for 10,000 people. Gleaning is an ancient practice that involves
volunteers gathering and distributing crops that would otherwise be left
in the fields to rot. This is one of numerous projects he has help to
initiate. Joshua has years of experience with non-governmental
organizations in the areas of food security, rural development and
appropriate technology. He holds a diploma in Poverty, Relief and
Development and an advanced certificate in BioIntensive
Agriculture. He has taught Sustainable Architecture and Conflict
Resolution at Wilson Community College in the US. He is one of the
co-initiators of the straw bale house construction at the United Nations
Headquarters in Nairobi and has worked as a consultant with the ODA/World
Bank.
[permaculture] INTERNATIONAL NATURAL BUILDING CONVERGENCE September 3rd-October 15th, 2002,
Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson, 07/30/2002