For our last stop in Africa we traveled to Kenya in order to meet Paul, the founder of Permoafrica-centre, a permacuture project in Homa Bay. We first met Paul through the volunteering platform "workaway" and we had been in contact since Summer 2017. Together, we have been actively planing our visit for months prior arrival. We were very excited about meeting this very active man with such ambitious projects. We reserved ten days in Homa Bay from the 21st of February 2018 to the 05th of March 2018. We were hosted in Paul's home directly with his family. We shared all the meals together as well as the working days, which were fairly intense and active. This article is about relating our experience at Permoafrica-centre with Paul, explaining about his project, our contribution and the achievements Paul made since we visited him. About Permoafrica-Centre What: permaculture farming group, community-based organization registered by the government of Kenya Where: Kawiya village, Homabay county, Kenya Why: support practices and policies that will sustain young & adult independent and prosperous farmers now and in the future Paul's background
Project's vision Permoafrica-Centre aims at helping communities through hard work and working together facing climatic changes, low investment, and relative isolation. We want to re-connect with the permaculture principles of Earth care and people care through gardening, knowledge and experiences that lead to fair share. Missions
Community engagementPaul's village is 10sq km with a population of 1800 people, one public school, three privates schools and 15 churches. The primary occupations in the village are sustenance farming, carpentry, blacksmith, tailoring and small business which are under lake Victoria ecosystem environment. Paul has the vision to educate and empower this rural community to escape extreme poverty through permaculture. We are focusing to support practice and policies that will sustain young & adult independent and prosperous farmers now and in the future. Permaculture demonstration farm The project garden at Permoafrica-Centre is a territory for experimentation and demonstration. Among many techniques the farm demonstrates the following:
Volunteering contribution
Complementary and subjective remarks Permaculture has ethics, which are earth care, people care and fair share. We should base our decisions and vision on those ethics, they are also good tools to evaluate a situation or a project! Our remarks follow the permaculture principles and aim at being constructive, presenting some areas for improvement and related potential solutions. Earth care
People care
Fair share
Than you and congratulation We really want to thank Paul, his family and community members for their warm welcoming. We felt part of the community and we felt like our help and advice was appreciated. We had a great time whereby we could participate but also suggest new activities. It was a real pleasure to spend those ten days at Paul's, we recommend this experience to all volunteers willing to very actively participate and help this permaculture project growing.
Moreover we want to say how proud we are of Paul and its project as we see many achievements since we left. Paul continued to offer many training sessions at the education centre, you can learn about it on his blog: https://permoafrica-centre.weebly.com/blog Paul is also being very active out of Permoafrica-centre as he is now teacher for Permaculture Designer Course in Uganda and also training Sudanees refugee at Dadab refugee camp in Uganda. You can contact and follow Paul's activities on his Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.o.ogola. We wish Paul and Permoafrica-Centre all the best in the future and always more success! Ero kamano
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