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This is a series of online sessions to introduce you to social permaculture. Starting with an intro to permaculture from a decolonized prespective continuing with a social permaculture intro by experienced practitioners, diving deeper into how to build community and how to use permaculture with children, finishing with a session about facilitation of groups and a practical session to apply all you have learned with a social design.
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Check out the course outline bellow
By Community Lab & Guest Speakers: Yara from Palestine and Steven from Kenya
This is an introduction to Permaculture by all 4 organizers of this course and invited permaculturists from around the world in order to approach from all cultural perspectives. A collaborative session on approaching the fundamentals of permaculture such as ethics, principles and basic tools. This is a session for setting the basic definitions about permaculture that we are going to be using in the upcoming sessions.
The guest speakers, Yara and Steven, will give us their prespective about what Permaculture means for them from a non-Western prespective.
Guest Speakers: Yara, Steven
By Christos Karystinos
The journey continues with an introduction to the permaculture ethics of people care and fair share, while implementing the principles of permaculture into human ecosystems such as groups, projects, organizations, and Zone 00 (ourselves). In this session, Christos will explain how time banks, seed banks, CSAs, fair trade cooperatives, communities, housing cooperatives, facilitation tools, and many more are elements in the hands of permaculturists in order to design a social permaculture system.
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Christos Karystinos
Christos lives and works in the rural community of Garipa in Crete. He is the founder of Community Lab and manager of Syntrofia Permaculture Project. Christos is a permaculture trainer & facilitator using Rosemary Morrow’s methodology and has a Permaculture Diploma from the Italian Academy of Permaculture. He has extensive experience living and working in ecovillages and permaculture communities from Sunseed Desert Technology, Lakabe, Auroville, Los Portales, and Comune di Bagnaia to projects in Latina America, and Asia. Through these experiences, Christos formed his core belief that the regeneration of the land is directly connected with the regeneration of the social system around it. He has taught more than 30 non-formal education courses related to social permaculture, regenerative farming, art & facilitation. As a co-founder and core educator of Evolving Cycles (Non-Profit Organization), Christos coordinates land-based learning and youth education across the ecotopias network.
By Liselotte Wuite
This session explores what it means to build sustainable, community-based ways of living, emphasising that strong ties rely on cooperation, trust, shared vision, and participatory decision-making. We will explore the state of the world and how communities are emerging in response to global social, ecological, and economic crises, offering regenerative, low-impact, people-centred alternatives. The session continues outlining the main dimensions of sustainable communities and projects, and introduces practical steps and tools for creating them, using a standing organisation, Semillistas, as inspiration and proof. From forming a shared vision and values, reassessing resources and priorities, creating group culture to designing governance and collaborative systems.
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Liselotte Wuite
Aims to live according to the permaculture ethics, integrating them in all aspects and projects of life. Currently residing and stewarding land in Capilerilla, Alpujarra Granadina and working mainly with association Semillistas as planting and volunteer coordinator, actively guiding and mentoring ESC volunteers and workers, facilitating lectures and workshops, and working together with the local municipality. Graduated in 2011 with a degree in Anthropology and Ecology (UCU, Netherlands) and is completing her diploma in ecosocial regenerative cultures with Gaia University. Has life and work experience in various communities, educational projects, and ecovillages, including Tierra Langla, Sunseed Desert Technology, El Calabacino, Baile en el Aire and to date in an intentional community, Aylacar. Is passionate about water in landscapes and has worked together with Swift Water Design in regenerating wetlands. Works with land management and general garden and land maintenance, teaches permaculture design certificate and social permaculture courses, among others topics such as pagan celebrations, foraging and fermentation, land and water management. In general loves to work with water in all aspects, foraging, dance and movement, cooking and long walks.
By Natasa Chatzioannou
This session is based on Natasa’s Master’s thesis on how a permaculture project can be developed in a public school during the school year. The relationship between children and nature has been studied for many years at an international level. Research has demonstrated that children’s contact with nature positively impacts their physical condition, mental health, social behavior, and the development of environmental values. The development of skills and values connected to the natural environment and local communities during childhood is associated with the continuation of these skills and values into adulthood.
Permaculture is recognized as a holistic design science for creating sustainable spaces and communities. The school community is considered an excellent opportunity for this process to begin, with the aim that creative solutions to humanity’s social and environmental challenges can be explored together with children.
The presentation of the permaculture project for schools, as part of the Social Permaculture seminar, is intended to inspire teachers, educators, NGOs, communities, and anyone working with children to integrate social permaculture practices into their daily work.
Environmental educator & founder of Smirili Nature Experiences
Natasa is a nature lover and sustainable travel ambassador. She is the founder of Smirili Nature Experiences, a hiking and nature awareness business in Greece. She holds a degree in Environmental Sciences and a Masters in environmental education from the University of the Aegean. From a very young age she discovered that is passionate about nature exploration. At the age of 15 decided to follow the career of environmentalist and keep this path in her life.
She is travelling herself in areas around the world to thoroughly observe human behavior with the nature around them. She has experience in working with people in the tropic, the arctic and the Mediterranean climate. She is dedicated to designing and operating environmental education activities for children in cooperation with several associations, NGOs and social cooperatives in Cyclades. She is also cooperating with associations around Europe for designing Erasmus + projects for youth work and adult education. She has completed a Permaculture Design Course and in 2020 has completed a course provided by Gaia Education “Design for Sustainability” with the final project outcome a blueprint on how to design regenerative educational centers “Whole Education Blueprint – The sustainable Kindergarten”.
By Delfino
This session is an introduction to the art of facilitation, the art of holding the space for a group by taking care of the people of the group, assisting them reach their goals and taking care of the process. This is an informative session by the famous professional facilitator Delfino (Stathis Mavridis), which will guide you through experiential knowledge about facilitation and his work. More info about his work at (GR https://facilitation.gr, IT https://facilitarte.org/facilitazioni/ , ES https://iiface.org/facilitacion/ )
Efstathios Mavridis “Delfino”
My ongoing experience living in a collective—which has continued since I was 15 and continues to this day—has led me to explore the human and energy sustainability of organizations. The search for real alternatives and my life journey led me to the Lakabe ecovillage, where I lived in community for 12 years. For the past 10 years, I have been consistently guiding groups, and for the past 7 years, I have been a certified IIFACe trainer. In addition to the basic IIFACe training, I have been trained in—and continue to learn about—various approaches and tools such as the ZEGG Forum, Transformational and Systemic Coaching, the Art of Process, bodywork, dream work, and clown improvisation, without ever intending to stop learning and growing as a person and in my role as a facilitator. For the past four years, I have also been guiding processes on a personal and relational level, and I have developed my own approach to addressing challenging situations and contributing to their transformation into opportunities.
By Mali Boomkens
As the sixth and last session of the Level 1 course, this is where we begin to turn the insights and inspiration from the previous five sessions into concrete action. In this interactive and practical session, we will explore Looby Macnamara’s Design Web by moving together through a short, live design process (that she calls a “quick design”).
You have already explored the foundations of social permaculture, reflected on permaculture theory and practice through a decolonial lens, zoomed in on impactful social permaculture examples around community building and learned about the essential basics of (group) facilitation. Setting the frame with Looby Macnamara’s and Jon Young’s work on Cultural Emergence, and late Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, this participatory session will build on those perspectives by helping you shape a small design that brings your learning into practice.
The Design Web is a people-centered design framework with twelve anchor points that invites you – unlike other more linear design frameworks – to move fluidly among the points, letting intuition, reflection, and emerging needs shape your design. Just as a spider senses vibrations and adjusts its web. You don’t need to have all the answers at the start; your vision can evolve, gain detail, and deepen as you revisit different stages of the process. By the end of the session you’ll have a small, realistic social design ready to take home, grow, and harvest for future projects!
Mali Boomkens
Mali (35) is a permaculture practitioner, facilitator, and educator whose journey began with studies in forest and nature conservation and sustainable tropical forestry. After graduating with a strong understanding of the socio-ecological challenges of our time, she went looking for more hopeful, solution-oriented pathways and found them in permaculture, community living, and cultural regeneration.
Mali lives in the mountains of Asturias, Spain, where she and her partner are now stewarding a 0,8 ha permaculture homestead and helping to bring back life to a once-abandoned hamlet together with other likeminded families. There she also forms part of the Anima Mundi team, a local association with the aim to create a residential home for people with special needs in another abandoned village.
Her most recent work is centered around writing, coordinating and facilitating projects for young people and youth workers on regenerative living, nature connection and sustainable activism,amongst others in collaboration with the Yes to Sustainability network and NextGEN – the youth branch of the European ecovillage network.