Organic Farm

Aardwerk: PDC course in 2012

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Netherlands (Special Municipality of Sint Eustatius)
Aardwerk: PDC course in 2012

For the time from the 1st of May to the 21st of May 2012, Aardwerk offers an international PDC course in a remote place, so that participants are able to see their environment in a new way. Instead of offering ready-made solutions, the course enables its participants to face the everyday challenges as well as the long term challenges they are faced with through their own strenghts and the collective intelligence of the group. The courses aim is to provide a new way of thinking: Rather than seeing problems, participants will be able to see opportunities.
Creative teaching methods and lots of practical field work will be part of the course. In the end graduates will receive the internationally recognised PDC certificate, which opens all possibilities for further work concerning permaculture.
There is the offer of several volunteer positions at local organic farm and nature management projects, for participants who would like to stay longer.
Benefits for participants is the development of skills throughout the course, among others the following ones:

  • greater food sovereignty
  • food and drinking water security & quality assurance
  • more efficient use of natural resources
  • energy security
  • more sustainable an resilient community life
  • practical community development & social cohesion
  • teaching traditional culture, knowledge & skills
  • more autonomy and security in essential services, products and materials
  • ways of social organisation that suit your own community’s needs and abilities

Participants will learn that following the patterns of Nature is  more satisfying and rewarding than e.g. switching Nature off and taking on the burdens of providing ecosystem services.
Furthermore the participants will contribute their share for Statia in terms of climate forest, local food security, healthy economic development and cultural enrichment.
The detailed programme, information about the location and the teachers can be found on http://aardwerk.org/school/international-pdc-2012/
Registration will be open from 1 December 2011 till 1 April 2012.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

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Connecting culture and agriculture – The Artful Manager

Recently Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle celebrated the 2010 recipients of the Governors Awards in Support of the Arts. It was another great batch of recipients full disclosure, Im on the Advisory Committee for the sponsoring organization, the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts. Links to videos about each recipient are included below.

A particular favorite, for a while now, is The Wormfarm Institute, a combination of organic farm, artist residency, and cultural connector in rural Reedsburg, Wisconsin, working to build a sustainable future for agriculture and the arts by fostering vital links between people and the land. Artists in residency work 15 hours a week tending to the farm, and helping things grow. Artists also enhance the life and work of local farmers through the very cool Roadside Culture Stands project. The Woolen Mill Gallery provides a public space to connect the dots, as well as in the current Smithsonian exhibit there.

via Connecting culture and agriculture – The Artful Manager.