Four days of hands-on workshops, community action, and Mediterranean connection.
This September, Chania becomes a meeting point for people of all ages, from everywhere. Rooted in permaculture and powered by community, the Mediterranean Permaculture Festival is an open invitation to reimagine how we care for the land, for each other, and for our shared future and everyone is welcome to join.
Free entry, with an optional contribution of whatever you like.
About YOU(th) CARE
The Mediterranean Permaculture Festival is part of YOU(th) CARE, a European initiative co-funded by the EU DEAR Programme (Development Education and Awareness Raising) that supports youth-led and youth-focused projects across the Mediterranean and beyond. YOU(th) CARE works through what it calls the Global CARE framework, a way of understanding care across four dimensions: environmental, social, emotional, and gender/intersectional. Through its CARE Actions Call for Proposals, the programme awards sub-grants to organisations turning this framework into real, hands-on action on the ground. Our festival is one of the projects selected to bring this vision to life.
Our Story & What We're Aiming For
Evolving Cycles (Greece) and Terramore APS (Italy) joined forces to apply for this grant, believing that permaculture and community-building are powerful tools against consumerism, social isolation, and environmental degradation. Together, we designed a project that puts these values into practice, not as theory, but as something you can live, touch, and take home with you.
Our goal is simple: to create four days where people from different backgrounds, ages, and places can learn from the land and from each other. We want participants to leave with real skills, new connections, and a sense that they can bring what they’ve learned back to their own communities – whether that’s a garden, a school, a neighbourhood, or just a conversation with a friend. At its heart, this festival is about strengthening the bond between Greece and Italy, and reviving the old Mediterranean spirit of sharing knowledge across the sea.
The Funding
This festival is made possible through YOU(th) CARE, co-funded by the European Union, under the O.1.3 CARE Actions Call for Proposals. The grant supports the coordination, workshops, facilitators, and materials that make the festival possible — which is also why entry is free and open to everyone. Because this project is community-funded at its core, we keep participation accessible: no tickets, no barriers, just an optional contribution if you’d like to support what we’re building.
Who's Behind It
Evolving Cycles (Greece)
Evolving Cycles is a Greek non-profit organisation, active since 2018 in education, culture, and ecology. It runs a network of regenerative community hubs, “Ecotopias” , built around permaculture, sociocracy, and compassionate communication. Through hubs like Syntrofia Permaculture Project (our festival’s host site in Garipa, Chania), and the Chania Youth Observatory, Evolving Cycles has welcomed hundreds of participants and international volunteers into hands-on ecological and community learning.
Terramore APS (Italy)
Terramore APS is an Italian non-profit working as a hub and educational centre for youth workers, educators, and facilitators. Its programmes combine social permaculture, agroecology, food forests, eco-building, deep ecology, forest therapy, and community governance tools like sociocracy and nonviolent communication. Terramore works with the idea that every person is a seed, holding the potential to grow and transform, given the right conditions.
Details section
Over four days — 24, 25, 26 and 27 September — you can dive into:
- Educational workshops on sustainable management of natural resources and biodiversity
- Community service actions that give back to the local area
- Knowledge exchanges between people from both sides of the Mediterranean and beyond
- Cultural activities celebrating social innovation and youth participation
Why we’re doing this?
We believe communities hold the power to regenerate our ecosystems and our societies. The festival is designed to:
- Empower youth through regenerative and ecological practices
- Push back against consumerism, eco-anxiety, and social isolation
- Strengthen cross-border cooperation across the Mediterranean
- Create a replicable “CARE festival” model for the whole Mediterranean
Open to all — free entry, free contribution
The festival is non-commercial and entry is completely free for everyone — locals, visitors, families, travellers, anyone curious. If you’d like to support the initiative, you’re welcome to give a voluntary contribution — any amount you choose. No tickets, no barriers, just participation.
Info: Accommodation & Food
We want everyone to feel welcome, but we also want to be upfront: the festival doesn’t provide everything, so a little planning ahead goes a long way!
- Accommodation: Space is limited, and we’ll be offering a limited number of tent spots for participants who want to camp on-site. If that’s not for you, we’ll also share information about affordable accommodation nearby, including local hostels but we’d encourage you to sort this out in advance rather than leave it to the last minute.
- Food: Food will be provided at certain points during the day, but not as full board. Come prepared to cover some of your own meals too.
We’ll share more practical details closer to the date, for now, just keep this in mind when you’re making your plans to join us.
Volunteer With Us
Want to be part of making this festival happen? We’re looking for volunteers to help bring the festival to life.
📧 Get in touch: popimichelo@gmail.com
Contact: Popi Michelogiannaki, Project Manager
Schedule
Thursday, September 24
17:00 – It Takes a Village: A sharing circle on parenting, community care & reproductive autonomy
Location: Boutsounaria | Facilitator: Mitra NPO
20:00 – Dinner
Location: Syntrofia
20:45 – Opening Night: Welcome to the Festival & Introduction to Permaculture / Presentation of the Festival Programme, Syntrofia & the Italian Organization Terramore
Location: Perivolia | Facilitators: Evolving Cycles & Terramore
Friday, September 25
10:00 – Action for the Garipa Community
Location: Perivolia | Facilitated by: Evolving Cycles & Terramore
16:00 – Workshop: Herbs as a Bridge Between Body, Memory, Emotion & Mental Self-Care
Location: Syntrofia | Facilitated by: Olistikon
18:00 – Workshop: The Ecological Permaculture Vegetable Garden — From Theory to Soil
Location: Syntrofia | Facilitated by: The Little School of the Earth
18:00 – Deep Ecology & Empowerment Lab: From Eco-Anxiety to Collective Action
Location: Boutsounaria | Facilitated by: Terramore
20:00 – Dinner
Location: Syntrofia
Saturday, September 26
10:30 – Regenerative Agriculture Workshop: Food Forest and Agroforestry
Location: Syntrofia | Facilitated by: Evolving Cycles
16:00 – Workshop: Water Resilience Design — Water as the Foundation of Every Landscape
Location: Syntrofia | Facilitated by: Terramore
17:00 – AcroYoga: Play, Movement & Balance in the Air
Location: Boutsounaria | Facilitated by: Independent AcroYoga Group
18:00 – Talk: From the Garden to the Community — The Social Impact of Permaculture
Location: Syntrofia | Speaker: Michalis Maniadakis — The Little School of the Earth
18:30 – Talk: The Land Remembers — Permaculture, Sovereignty & Survival in Lebanon
Location: Syntrofia | Speaker: Rebecca Mouawad — SAMADI, Holistic & Regenerative Farm, Lebanon
20:00 – Dinner
Location: Syntrofia
Sunday, September 27
11:00 – Natural Building Workshop: Plithia (Traditional Adobe Bricks)
Location: Syntrofia | Facilitated by: pilOiko NPO
13:00 – Lunch
Location: Syntrofia
16:00 – Seeds of Change – Hands-On Workshop: The Seed as an Act of Hope & Regeneration / Making Seed Balls
Location: Boutsounaria | Facilitated by: Terramore
18:00 – Local Producers & Ecological Initiatives Fair: Meet the People of Our Land
Location: Perivolia
19:00 – Taking Seeds, Leaving Roots: Closing Night with Live Music
Local musicians | Location: Perivolia