Peace Corps Volunteers in Dedza, Malawi

Never Ending Food was able to spend half a day with the most recent group of Peace Corps Volunteers.  This was a combined group of Health and Environment Sector volunteers who will be swearing-in this coming week and heading to their respective sites throughout the country.  During the morning’s session we were able to highlight the abundance ofMalawi’s local resources and their importance in the sustainability of a Peace Corps’ service.  We looked at the reality of being able to work with their communities to create well-balanced and nutritious diets through diversified agricultural practices, as well as working towards poverty reduction through income generating activities and the use of ‘non-timber forest products’.  The entire group was walked through the basics of Permaculture site design by looking at under-utilized resources around the Malawi College of Forestry where Peace Corps holds their trainings.  We discovered organic matter piles that had been piled up and forgotten about, but which had turned into beautiful compost.  We found cement and brick rain gutters which had been built to direct water away from buildings and now served to dump more than half a million liters of wasted water along the side of a road.  (The same amount of bricks and cement could have easily been utilized to construct water harvesting tanks.)  We also looked at the poor quality and pale color of the soil where people were trying to produce all their food for the entire year and compared it with the incredibly rich, black, and moist soil of the surrounding natural areas.  Hopefully these observations will help some of these volunteers to go to their sites with new ‘Permaculture’ eyes and really assess some of the resources that they already have to work with.  If, over the course of the next two years, these Volunteers can get their community members to realize Malawi’s potential to find solutions to current problems, they will be able to work themselves out of a job—which is the ultimate aim of a ‘successful’ Volunteer.  Good luck in your service and remember that Never Ending Food will continue to support your efforts in any way that we can.

The Class of 'Graduates'!

Malawi has eleven newly trained and certified Permaculture Designers!  The Permaculture Design Course (PDC) was facilitated by Kristof with Luwayo Biswick acting as an assistant facilitator.  This was Luwayo’s second PDC as an assistant and each time he is gaining more experience and responsibilities in order to build up his own skills as a trainer.  This PDC was funded by a local non-profit organization known as ‘E3 Worldwide’ (Educate, Empower, Employ) and was held at a local college called ‘African Bible College’.  The E3 project is working in an area of Malawi called Dowa and is currently in the process of building a school which they would like to also use as a Permaculture demonstration area for the members of that community.  Big plans are underway to install solar panels, build an aquaponics system, harvest water, build a methane biodigester and re-design the entire area in line with Permaculture principles.  Eight of the eleven participants came from this project, two were Peace Corps Volunteers who are working in the north of the country and one participant was from the urban area ofLilongwe,Malawi’s capital city.  Thanks again to all who made this training a reality and best of luck to all the participants in their implementation efforts!

The Recycled 'Fashion Show'!

Four Seasons Nursery in Lilongwe, Malawi (an avid supporter and practitioner of Permaculture activities in Malawi), under the amazing facilitation of Afshan Omar, has just concluded another wonderful ‘Green Camp’ for kids.  This is the fourth successful completion of such a camp and offers children in the Lilongwe area the opportunity to learn about environmental issues through hands-on highly imaginative activities.  This camp’s

Urban Design--Sustainable City vs. Unsustainable

agenda included learning about the web of life, recycling, urban transformation, tree planting, the creation of ‘green space’, worm farming, wildlife, water management, soil health, and even a recycled/reused ‘fashion show’.  It is through the support of businesses like Four Seasons and the tireless efforts of people like Afshan that we can all start to make the world a better place…one kid at a time!  We are already looking forward to the next one, but we’ll let Afshan take a well-deserved rest first.  A big thanks to everybody who was involved.

Water Spinach Vine in a Water Feature

Water Spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) is a tropical vegetable in the sweet potato family.  It grows well in marshy wetland areas and can easily be propagated through stem cuttings.  At Never Ending Food we have cement planters in each of our small ponds to keep the roots of water-loving plants from taking over the entire water feature.  This allows more room for other species to thrive, such as fish and frogs.  Each of these planters has a Water Spinach plant growing in it.  This helps to draw much needed oxygen out of the air and into the ponds, as well as giving us the element of

Beautiful Flowers for Functional Landscaping

‘functional landscaping’ that provides beauty and vegetables.  The Water Spinach flower is a very beautiful purplish-white bloom that has sometimes earned it the nickname ‘Water Morning Glory’.  Water Spinach leaves can be cooked just as any other spinach or sweet potato leaf.  They have been found to be very high sources of potassium and iron, as well as moderate sources of calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous.