21.0 Eco-Centro Workshop : Retooling Permaculture

Eco-Centro is a Brazilian permaculture organization that arrived on the Boom site four months before the festival. They did whole systems consulting on things like showers, compost toilets, grey water systems, and building countless installations. They also created a cob eco-center hosting many workshops. 

The eco-centro space was made of haybales and sprayed with a mixture of red clay and sand. 13 people showed up for the workshop for 7 countries, mostly Portuguese people who did not have a good grasp of english. After a circle of introductions I spread out the permaculture principles toolset as well as the permaculture mapping toolset to draw attention. The permaculture principles toolset involved 36 hexagonal cards, one side featured a permaculture principle and a short writeup about it and the other a logo illustrating the principle. I developed the text while one of the students doing the PDC with me, Lunaya did the design and developed the icons. This was one of the final projects for the PDC i am taking Lunaya through. The other toolset used is a prototype for a larger set of mapping and consutling tools featuring small hexagonal elements of things found on a permaculture property. Together we organized the element tools into a rough property design. Using leading questions we reorganized the elements on the design according to permaculture principles. To further illustrate each principle I used the permaculture principles card deck, pulling out the relevant card as we cycled through each principle. I then talked about the heart gardens map as a tool template for using local media to initiate relationships, dialogues and build community. It was a very casual, easy and fun workshop which i did quite spontaneously without too much reference to notes. It showed me again how helpful teaching tools can be in creating a dynamic and interactive learning experience. Deepest of thanks to Lucy Legan www.ecocentro.org/en/ for stewarding and hosting this incredible learning zone.