In the last four years Bernhard Gruber visited several times the foodforest gardens of the Chagga people of mount Kilimanjaro in Kibosho Region / Tansania. He was running several Permaculture-Trainings with local farmers and in 2011 as chairman of austrian permaculture organisation he invited Dr. Peter Feleshi from ANAMED to run a one weeks training for traditional medicine in the tropics.

This year Bernhard Gruber was invited by his former permaculture-student, Andrea Hartl, to join their aidwork in Sri Lanka. Andrea and husband Martin running since years different projects all around Sri Lanka, now the like to implement permaculture into their work. They organiced with their organisation "people4people" a ten days permaculture training in the village of Gonagolla near by Ampara, close to the east coast.

Topics of the course:
History and principles of Permaculture, ethics, identification of different landscapes, laws of nature, diagrammatic, climate, zones, microclimate, resources, recycling, thinking in cycles, economy, energy, appropriate technology, compost, plant sewage treatment, mulch, aquaculture, animals in Permaculture, working with solar energy, low tech, visible and invisible structures,communities, soil science, earth movement, fertility, urban design, obstructed landscape, eatable landscape, introduction to the planning of projects.

As a practical training we built together a Mandala-Garden and a simple Lorena Stove, during work we were singing and dancing together. On the further trip Bernhard Gruber and his european Students had the chance to visit traditional Homegardens in the Highlands around Kandy. This kind of foodforests have a 500 years tradition in Sri Lanka-Landmanagement.