I am a permaculture diploma student, delighted to be learning by doing in Ireland and across the globe for the next two years, on my way to learning, experiencing and gathering skills and lessons to become a permaculture practicioner.

I love anything to do with a community, people coming together for something that they are passionate about and working together to achieve it. This can be a community garden, a farm, a natural building workshop or the global community that is connected through emails, facebook and common love of our own interests.

I am massively interested in food, growing it, preserving it, cooking, baking, foraging and community along with freshness and seasonality.

I am also very interested in the edge of urban permaculture, natural building, zero waste aspirations and very important for me, personal growth and development, zone 00. I hope to learn and then run workshops on permaculture, compositing, urban growing, community gardens, cooking, preserving, bee-keeping and mindful creativity.

I completed my PDC at Cloughjordan Eco Village in August 2011, having seen first hand the benefits of applying permaculture principles by wwoofing in Australia and New Zealand. Zero waste principles, food forests, community farms, eco-tourism and natural building were all in my mind and I would read a great deal about them but living in Raglan, a transition town in NZ, where the transition network is well-established, opened my mind to the practical and brilliantly benefical aspects of permaculture in a living community.

When I moved back to Ireland over two years ago, I sought to learn and practice as many skills as possible. I have completed an EPA and City Council endorsed master composter programme, training groups and communities about the Stop Food Waste scheme and the benefits to soil, community, land, and pockets of composting.

I have also taken courses in facilitation of sustainable audits in work, home and school. I took a course on community gardening and environmental education for schools.

As a former teacher, I would love to become a tutor and facilitator, knowing that people learn by doing out of their own interest, once they have a guide to help them along the way.

I am passionate about the power individuals and groups can garner for themselves through growing food, becoming more autonomous, believing in their current skills and taking action to seek out new skills. Seed-saving, preserving and learning how to be self-sufficient, even in an urban environment, are all very important to me.

Travelling in an integral part of my learning and building of my sense of community. Travelling also teaches me through new experiences. I hope the next few years, my diploma will benefit from learning on different permaculture sites how permaculture works in different environments and with different people around the world so that I can always be inspired.