05.11.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:20 pm by Kristof
It has been another exciting period for Permaculture in Malawi. The country is preparing to host the International Permaculture Convergence (IPC9) in November of this year. We have been working with a local cultural center and lodge near the capital city of Lilongwe to prepare the venue for hosting what could turn out to several hundred people. For more information regarding IPC9, please click here.
Earlier this year, Stacia and I received our Permaculture Diplomas signed by Bill Mollison himself! This has to one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to us. This was due to a visit to Malawi by the internationally recognized Permaculutralist, Ali Sharif, from Brazil. As a diploma holder himself, and one of the first student to have been trained by Bill Mollison, he was able to verify our qualifications and facilitate the process. We owe Mr. Sharif a great debt of gratitude. He has also helped to raise the standards of Permaculture in Malawi as we now have five people who hold diplomas in Permaculture design. Ali Sharif was also instramental in organizing IPC8 in Brazil and has now been giving Malawi advice and assistance in our efforts to set up IPC9.
(Kristof and Stacia looking professional…now that they have diplomas!)
Kristof has been working with a group known as Partners in Health recently and they are in the process of setting up a Permaculutre demonstration plot at a large hospital in the South of the country to assist with nutrition, home-based care, and HIV intervention. They have brought several staff to our home for a 3-day introduction to Permaculture and will be funding a 12-day Permaculture Design Course at the end of this month for those who will be involved with this project and its outreach program. Its main target will be to assist a population of almost 1000 HIV positive people with knowledge about growing and eating locally available foods, designing living situations to receive high outputs for low inputs, and learning about the use of local medicines for opportunistic infections and overall maintanance of health.
Stacia has continued to support Malawi’s School Health and Nutrition programme. There are a growing number of Primary Schools throughout the country that are turning to Permaculture to teach children the value of a diverse diet, the conservation of natural resources, and the sustainability of low-input agriculture. The Sustainable School Food and Nutrition pilot program started with 40 schools and now the number has grown to over 250 as other schools have adopted the approach on their own. There is a push now to adapt the curriculum to reflect the reality of what the students are learning about Permaculture living and its benefits.
We also had a wonderful visit from Kristof’s mom, Lillian, and our long-time friend, Ski, from Wisconsin. This gave us the opportunity to get away awhile to spend some time at a forestry lodge, at Lake Malawi, and to show off some of our Permaculture activities. Here is a picture of all of us at the venue for the upcoming IPC9.
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09.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:15 am by Stacia and Kristof
Kristof, Stacia and Khalidwe on a recent trek up Mount Mulanje - the original Permaculture!
We have been busy reorganizing and thinking through what to add to this site. Your questions and suggestions have been helping us to understand better what the public wants to learn more about. Please add your comments to this posting and with your opinions on what we should add. Here are a few things we are planning:
- personal page for the Nordin Family life
- trainings: descriptions and pictures
- pictures: a few on each page
- resources: print and websites for more reading
- calendar of events and plans in the works
- data on what to eat
- species of malawi - the 600 foods that we refer to alot from Jessie Williamson’s Useful plants of Malawi works and other research we’ve done.
Those are our thoughts for now on where to go with this - we are looking forward to hearing from you!
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08.30.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:53 pm by Stacia and Kristof
What a great day together at Pa Nthunzi Permaculture centre in Blantyre! 13 members of the executive committee and newsletter editing team met, thanks to GTZ, ReSCOPE and PaNthunzi, to improve the committee’s planning, implementing and overall organizational skills. See their picture on Permaculture Network in Malawi link.
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05.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:11 pm by Kristof
Please check out the new page on the “Model Village”. It contains updated before after pictures of the progress and an in depth explaination of the developments over the last two years.
We are also proud to announce that our work has been highlighted in the Summer ‘08 No. 56 issue of the Permaculture magazine from the United Kingdom. For more information on this magazine, or to check out thier new on-line subscription option, go to www.permaculture.co.uk
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04.26.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:57 am by Kristof
Now that we have a bit more access to the internet, we’ve updated a few things:
1) Permaculture Schools page. Don’t be fooled by the title - the ideas can be applied to any setting anywhere. Do take a look no matter where you are and be inspired by our colleagues!
2) Presentations for Downloading. A whole new page that will be dedicated to sharing presentations. There is one presentation on the School Health and Nutrition Programme’s Permaculture Pilot.
Enjoy!
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03.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:46 am by Kristof
Hello all, We just wanted you to know that we have been struggling with the joys of electronic communication here in Malawi lately. Our telephone service provider went on strike for awhile, and then we got struck by lightning that blew up the phone line. We hope to get everything sorted soon and upload some new things that have been happening around Permaculture in Malawi. Please have patience and continue to check back with us. See you soon!
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02.26.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:57 pm by Kristof
Check out our new pages!
- Malawi’s Low Input Food and Nutrition Manual is now on-line. Check out this great resource for teaching and learning about sustainable living. It is all in PDF format and broken into downloadable sized sections. You can find it all on the “Low Input Manual” page.
- One of Never Ending Food’s apprentices takes Permaculture to the community. Please see the page “A Church Goes Green” for a description and pictures of Issac Kafakalawa’s efforts to establish a Permaculture demonstration plot at a local church.
More to come soon! Thanks for your support and all the encouraging responses that we have been getting from those of you who have accessed this site. We will try to continue to include relevant and educational material on Permaculture and nutrition activities here in Malawi.
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02.20.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:16 am by Kristof
Hello Everyone! Please check out the latest on donating to the Permaculture Network in Malawi (see Donations and International Payments page), as well as the latest from our intern, Hope Thornton, and her efforts to assist with our “model village” (see Virtual Tour Page). We have also uploaded the latest issue of the Permacutlure Network in Malawi’s newsletter that focuses on “Culture” (you can download it from the Permaculture Newsletter page).
Coming soon:
- Watch for a page on Malawi’s sustainable school feeding project! Stacia Nordin is involved in an ambitious partnership with Malawi’s Ministry of Education and GTZ (a German Technical Agency) to get Permaculture into over 5000 primary schools in Malawi!
- Never Ending Food’s community outreach reaches out to a local church where a parking lot has been converted to a Garden of Eden with the efforts of Issac Kafakalawa, a local intern of NEF with great ideas and an even greater ambition to improve Malawi!
- The Alumni Exchange Programme of the U.S. Embassy launches four Permaculture demonstration gardens throughout the country and Never Ending Food is there to offer guidance, assistance, and encouragement.
- Plus, Partners in Hope, a hospital near the capital city of Lilongwe that focuses primarily on HIV/AIDS, asks Never Ending Food for assistance with integrating Permaculture into the work that they are doing! They are currently in the process of designing a model of a Permaculture house and living area that will be used for teaching about improving health in Malawi. We hope to bring you pictures of this and all these other developments very soon!
We wish you all the best for 2007 and hope your gardens all flourish with Permaculture ideas!
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