Koanga Spring Internship

Livelihoods and Self-Reliance in Gardening and Nutrient Dense Food

Tutors: Kay Baxter, Nathan Foote, Emma Cowan, Dan Palmer, Taiamai Corker, Bob Corker

Location: Koanga Institute,Wairoa

Price: NZ$4800 ($3900 for New Zealanders)

Dates: September 17^th – Nov. 23

 
This Internship program is a full time program for those wishing to get experience  and skills in designing and implementing a comprehensive program of livelihood production and/or  self-reliance in healthy food and simple living.  All meals are provided during the week (following the principles you will be learning) with food and cooking facilities provided during the weekend.  You will be responsible for providing your own bedding and sleeping accomodation, tent/ camper van etc, and you will have access to  composting toilets, rocket stove powered showers, hand washing machine powered laundry, a covered kitchen/ dining area, teaching space/lounge, wireless internet and the Institutes reference library.  You will also be living within the fledgling  Kotare Village which provides social interaction and a beautiful environment to live in.

Each intern will work though a program of 11 workshops (listed below) and get to choose a mentoring program (also listed below), where they will spend the balance of their time, in a hands on learning experience.

Workshop Program
      1.Cooking and Preparing Nutrient Dense Food with Emma Cowan, (1 day)
       2. Biointensive Gardening with Nathan Foote (3 days)
       3. Growing Nutrient Dense Food with Kay Baxter (1 day) 

4. Small Farm Animals with Taiamai Corker, and Kay Baxter (2 days)

5. Sustainable, Regenerative Small Farm Design Taiamai and Bob Corker (2 days)

6. Orchard/Food Forest Design with Kay Baxter (2 days)

7. Seed Saving with Kay Baxter (2 days)

8. Urban Design with Dan Palmer (4 days)

9. Herbs with Janey Azzopardi (1 day)

10. Top bar Beekeeping ( 1 day)

11. Quarter acre design with Bob Corker and Kay Baxter (2 days)

Intern Practical Program

Garden/Seed/Food Production. (maximum 3 interns)

Your mentors will be Tim Ferenc (our garden manager), and Kay Baxter, and you will be practicing Bio intensive gardening using strategies and techniques from the wide field of biological agriculture. Our focus is on efficiently growing high quality soil, high quality plants and high quality seeds.. During this internship you will get all the practical experience you need to be able to earn a living growing vegetables, flowers or seeds using low tech sustainable profitable methods.

Nursery/Orchard/Food forest ( maximum 2 interns)

Your mentors will be Kay Baxter, and Dennis McGregor. You will be working both in the open ground nursery and adjacent food forest being established by the Koanga Institute, as well as the family nursery and orchard being established by Dennis and Emma, within Kotare Village.

Herbs ( 1 intern)

Your mentor will be Janey Azzopardi a trained medical herbalist and you will be working with her establishing herb gardens for medicine, propagation and seed production and education. Janey is working with the Koanga Institute and living in Kotare Village.

Small Farming ( maximum 2 interns)

Your mentors will be Taiamai and Bob Corker, who are establishing a fully integrated, regenerative, diverse small farm within Kotare Village, to supply small goods, sausages bacon, meat, eggs etc to Kotare Villagers and the Koanga Institute internship programs, Permaculture Design Courses, and workshops. You will be working with heritage breeds of cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and bees. We will be using management intensive grazing, and working with biological agriculture strategies, developing self reliance in everyway whilst improving soil plant animal health.

Processing, Preparation and Cooking of Nutrient Dense Food ( maximum 1 intern)

Your mentors will be Emma Cowan, and Janey Azzopardi, helping to prepare the food for the intern program, fresh from the farm and the gardens. (maximum 1 intern)

SPONSORSHIP

We are offering you the opportunity to nominate someone (from NZ) you know for sponsorship for this internship. (please email or phone for an application form). Somebody who you know has the passion and ability to get the most from this opportunity, and who would take the skills back into their own community and share them widely.

We will choose one nominated person from the applications and put their nomination and photo up on the website in August to collect financial support.

Get your neighbourhood groups, Whanau, and families together to nominate somebody who you know will use this internship as a life changing opportunity to be the change we all need in the world and share that with you all.

For more information on any aspects of this program contact us

http://www.koanga.org.nz/contact-us