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Practical Permaculture Institute of Kenya

Details

Commenced:	01/10/2013
Submitted:	31/12/2013
Last updated:	07/10/2015
Location:	Butula, Busia, KE
Phone:	011 254 720 806 003
Climate zone:	Wet/Dry Tropical

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Practical Permaculture Institute of Kenya

Project Type

Rural, Commercial, Community, Philanthropic aid, Demonstration, Educational, Financial Economic

Project Summary

Over 18 working days, 6 Canadian students, two Canadian teachers, one Kenyan teacher and 30 hired labourers transformed 0.54 acres into a training centre in the NW area of Kenya.

Project Description

During October and November of 2013 I traveled to Kenya with 6 students under the mentorship and guidance of Michael Nickels who for the last 25 years has been working in Kenya with farmers, schools and teachers to spread permaculture as a local means of growing food, generating energy, building community and providing income. While in the north west of the country near Butula, Busia we worked with JB a local kenya who had by his own admission, "been bitten by the permaculture" to build the Practical Permaculture Institute of Kenya. With a work force of 30 Kenyans plus 6 Canadian students, one Kenyan student and one Ugandan in 18 days we transformed 0.54 acres from fallow land into a kitchen with three fuel efficient rocket stoves with a store front, a dorm that sleeps 20 people with an attached office and classroom for 25, a indoor/outdoor shower, three bin composting toilet, three ponds fed by a road diverting bund, two of which will be used to raise in excess of 800 tilapia and mudfish per annum and one which is the water reserve for a 5000 packet tree nursery, a major diversional swale that connects the ponds and helps to fill the feeder swales for the planted wood lot, two food forests, completely fenced property and planted with a living hedge that will grow into the barbed wire once the termites and ants eat through the fence posts in two years. Five days after we left 28 native Kenyans took their first PDC at the site. My gratitude to Michael Nickels, the funders of the project Lush Cosmetics, Lift the Children Foundation, Michael Family, the students, the Kenyan tradespersons (some of the hardest working people I've had the pleasure to shovel with), the family that kept us fed, our driver, our hosts and everyone who had a hand in this project. I look forward to next year's project and many more for years to come. Asante sana Javan

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