Subsidized spots on Summer PDC & 8 Week Internship Trainings @ Ridgedale Permaculture

25/2/2015

Subsidized spots on Summer PDC & 8 Week Internship Trainings @ Ridgedale Permaculture

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2014 was an incredible pioneering year for us at Ridgedale Permaculture. We hit the ground running and with an awesome Core Team from around the world and all the amazing people who came through the farm we achieved so much both on the land and in education, and gained support of over 10,000 followers to our Fb page Thanks so much to all of you who contribute to this amazing place. We have so much to be grateful for, and it is such a joy and pleasure to be able to share our experience and learning with some of the brightest minds and kindest hearts we've ever met. We have always valued making our Educational activities as accessible as possible; one of our main objectives is supporting as many people as possible into farming & land based enterprises and professional regenerative design. We've been doing pretty good with it; yet settled at our Swedish home base where we have to operate in this economy (not exactly set up to support small, local regenerative enterprises!) We realize many around the world just can't afford to make it to our trainings. Our unique Internship program is cheaper than the cost of backpacking in the area and participants from around the world have consistently reflected the value of this program compared to others abroad. But we have still been considering how we can support low income folks who have the passion and commitment, who are dedicating their lives to regenerating their soils and communities. Yohanna & Richard have decided to offer super low cost placement's for both our next Permaculture Design Course and our pioneering training; 8 Week Farm Scale & Professional Permaculture Internship.

THIS OFFER IS OPEN UNTIL 25TH March 2015...

If you are interested in this opportunity please read & consider this carefully. We find one of the problems with our digital era is people jump onto links, etc, without considering the whole. This opportunity is to facilitate and support people who genuinely have limited fiscal resources to participate in this life changing education. It's not a chance of a "freebie." If you want to participate you need to be committed to the training dates and if selected pay the full fee within 10 days of being selected. We've spelled it out pretty clearly, but see that a lot of folks respond to posts without having even read them! If you don't follow the simple instructions or write to us after the date above you're unlikely to hear from us!

We searched around all corners of Sweden to find a place to set up our farm project, with a list of around 50 goals we were trying to meet. We found it, and with our incredible Core Team and Intern's laid out the skeleton of the farm in our first 6 month season as you can see in the brief recap of the year below;

We're trying to share as much of this journey with as many people as possible through our trainings, writings, etc. You can read more about the last season's experience in a recent article on our blog. 2015 will see us scaling up egg and broiler production, extending the gardens for a CSA and a whole bunch of exciting things. It's going to be epic.

Whilst our trainings are comparatively low priced for what we offer, we know a lot of people who could benefit from this just can't afford our workshops. We decided as part of our Fair Share policy to pay it forward and are offering;

1 spot on our next highly regarded Permaculture Design Course (1- 13th Aug) training for 2000.00 SEK (normally 10, 500 SEK). Details for this training are found here.
We are also offering 1 spot on our unique & pioneering 8 Week Farm Scale & Professional Permaculture Internship (normally 36,000 SEK) for 9,900.00 SEK. This 8 Week Certificate training includes;

• 90hr+ PRI (Aus) & PC Assoc (UK) certified PDC
• Introduction to Holistic Management (Savory Institute Certified) & integrated Animal Systems
• Keyline Design & Water Management
• Agroforestry & Perennial Cropping
• Annual vegetable production & Regenerating Soils

There is no other training like this we know about, so we are looking to support someone who will really utilize what they learn with us in a highly active way. Details of this training found here.

At this point both the PDC and Internship are booking up, but spots are available on both. If you have already signed up you can still apply. We shall select the lucky 2 people after 25th March. You will need to pay the fee within 10 days of receipt of the news or you forfeit the gift (which will go to someone else). To be in for a chance you need to;

Share this blog post publicly on your Facebook Feed (You can "like" us too if you want to keep updated with the farm)
Write a response here on this blog about how you would benefit from & utilize this training

Ultimately we know our future depends on a LOT more people expressing their uniques gifts, strengths & talents in regenerative enterprises. Please note the intention of this is to support folks who simply cannot afford trainings of this nature rather than people who prioritize spending money in other areas.

Best wishes for 2015, thank you so much for all the support that has come in from around the globe. It is such an honor to share these journeys together...

12 Comments

Hanne Dausien link

24/2/2015 08:53:57 pm

I´m in the beginning of starting up my cultivation. Me and my husband bought this land in the meaning of building small alternative houses for tourists. We leased the camping just near by. The owner of the camping and I didn´t have the same future visions so I ended the contrack
The land is about 25000 m2. There is a lovely small house with the best view over the lake. When you sit on the terass you find peace.
Now I want to make the best for this land, In the surronding there are farmers with apples, vegetables, plums and other.
They all uses the land for the best profit.
I want to think all the way. I read alot, trying to learn, want to go courses. But I dont want to do anything wrong.
I´ve allready started in my head and planning it all.
I would be very happy if I´ve got the chance to do this.
I want to live on my gardening, and help other people to understand.
I hope you can read my terrible english... my husband is from germany and when I learned better german I almoust forgot the english.
I have a family with three kids so the 8 week Farm Scale & Professional Permaculture Internship is not an option but the Permaculture Design Course would be loveley to be part of.

Regards

Hanne Dausien

0705571163

Dan Lofland

25/2/2015 03:39:52 am

After spending the last year in Hawaii living and working at an organic farm community, I have found my passion for sustainable agriculture and natural building. For two months I worked hands-on in a fully functioning permaculture garden and learned some of the basic techniques and theory behind this wonderful craft. I truly believe permaculture and regenerative design can be implemented into urban areas and used to facilitate human being's symbiotic relationship with the earth and aid in the healing of it's ecological lifeblood.

With that being said, I know I will benefit by taking part in this internship. I am young and in the stage of my life where I'm discovering what's truly important to me. This education is not for myself alone; my dream involves many people but starts with a process of learning/mastery where I build the skills and confidence necessary to start expanding others into the equation.

This is what I want to do with my life! I couldn't be more enthusiastic about this opportunity at Ridgedale Permaculture.

Cheers and thank you for a chance at this opportunityll!

Dan

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joy

25/2/2015 08:46:25 am

I really want to do the PDC course but cant afford to do it at the moment. I have been on a permaculture introduction weekend a few years ago but would love to learn more. I currently work as an organic gardener (part-time)and am studying via distance learning for the rhs level 2 horticulture course. I would like to study permaculture futher so that I have a balance to my other studies. In the future there are lots of possibilities including permaculture design in gardens and setting up land using organic gardening techniques and permaculture design...and maybe lots of other ideas I havent thought about yet! I would love the opportunity to study permaculture futher and have an adventure at the same time. Thanks.
Joy

Lisa Winter

26/2/2015 12:21:16 pm

I would love to be part of your internship program. I have taken a permaculture course and have been growing food for most my adult life. However, with most of the bigger concepts in permaculture I have no hands on experience. I loved my pdc but it was very classroom based and now I'm ready to put that learning into practice. The idea of incorporating learning with doing sounds amazing to me. My husband and I have a few acres of land and our goal is to create a permaculture farm that will serve as a source of learning for our community. Much as it seems you are doing now, which makes this an even more amazing opportunity. I'm a hard worker and love to work in teams and problem solve and feel like I would benefit immensely from this experience. Even better, I feel like I can help share this knowledge in my community and help other people get their permaculture projects off of the ground.
Thanks for considering me,
Lisa

Gerardo Ruiz link

8/3/2015 10:38:56 am

Greetings from Mexico!

I’m a young permaculturist certified by the Urban Permaculture Institute of San Francisco where I took my PDC in 2013 while I was working for a solar company doing PV installations and volunteering on a few urban farms. Since then I have continued my education by taking more workshops, both in Mexico and the US, on food forest, rotational grazing, eco-village design, natural building, natural beekeeping, etc.

For the last two years I’ve been collaborating with a Wixarika (Huichol) community in northern Mexico on the development of an Autonomous High School with the support of the Wixarika Research Center, a small non-profit that works for the preservation of the Wixarika culture and their land. This project includes the development of a regenerative forestry program as well as the implementation of other appropriate technologies for water, energy and food production. For more information please visit this link:

https://projectnuevomundo.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/indigenous-permaculture-in-mexico-gerardo-ruiz/

Since the beginning of 2014 I have been involved with Organi-K, another Mexican non-profit, organizing volunteer programs and permaculture workshops to develop regenerative projects in rural communities in Mexico that are looking for alternatives to mining exploitation in their territories. One of the projects that I’m helping design, in collaboration with some small communities in San Luis Potosi, is a Mesquite Agroforestry Program with the goal of propagating and planting trees, integrating animal systems and processing the pods into flour with a small hammer-mill for local consumption and external markets.

Right now I feel a strong need to get more advanced hands-on experience and gain new skills to be able to offer more large scale strategies and solutions to the communities that I’m working with here in Mexico, specifically on water management (Keyline design), soil regeneration, agroforestry and animal systems. I have visited some really interesting projects in Mexico including Las Cañadas, Rancho San Ricardo and Granja Nut where I have found lots of new ideas and inspiration, unfortunately they lack advanced internship programs at this moment.

I’ve been following the development of Ridgedale Permaculture since it’s beging through social media and the videos/articles that have been released, I’m quite inspired by the evolution of the project and how diversified it has gotten in such a short time. I also heard great thing about the work that it’s being done at Ridgedale and the educational program thorough my friend Rodrigo Quiros. I’m very interested in being part of the 8-week Permaculture Internship Program in order to gain more skills and confidence in the design, implementation and maintenance of regenerative agricultural systems and bring back that experience to people in rural Mexico that are seeking ways to regenerate their communities and their land.

I would like to thank you for all the work you do and for the effort to find new ways to make this learning experiences more affordable to people through the subsided positions, without this possibility being part of the intership would be completely out of my budget at this time. I hope I'll get to know the Ridgedale Permaculture team pretty soon and be able to learn from you and support the work you are doing.

Muchas gracias y saludos!

Gerardo Ruiz

Wally Toughill

10/3/2015 06:31:32 am

Doing the 8 week internship at Ridgedale would be a dream for me. I've been involved in the world of permaculture now for 3 years, mostly in Portugal, and have spent the last year setting up a 7 hectare farm in the serra da estrella mountain range in central Portugal with a few friends using permaculture design principles and techniques. The 8 week internship at Ridgedale is just what I need to get more hands-on experience/inspiration/confidence in completing my mission. I am interested in all aspects of regenerative agriculture/design and feel that at Ridgedale I would learn about them all. I have completed 2 Pdc courses( leslie Martin and Rosemary morrows), a Permaculture teacher training course (Rosemary morrows), dryland water management course (with Richard) and many workshops here and there and read all the books I could get a hold of including the Bible. I feel that I'm at a stage where I could really suck the juice out of this internship. I am currently doing the Permaculture Diploma through Gaia university and would love to integrate the two. My aim is become a professional permaculture teacher/designer and I'm positive that I would benefit dramatically by studying at Ridgedale. I would utilize everything that I learned to help me set up a permaculture demonstration site in Portugal and hopefully my future career as a teacher/designer/inspirer, which I hope will involve work in third world. Thanks you for your time, inspiration, passion and all round awesomeness.
Peace and Carrots
Wally

Luke

14/3/2015 02:29:29 am

First off, what an generous opportunity provided by Richard and Yohanna, two great people and inspirations for all the burgeoning young regenerative agrarians out there. This past year, both the Ridgedale Facebook page and blog have been great resources for gleaning personal and educational accounts of a developing regenerative enterprise in "real-time"... as projects, problems, and educational events unfolded in a very inclusive, "open sourced" manner. What a model for us to look to going forward.

As a conventional residential landscaper with plans of beginning a regenerative enterprise in the near future, I feel the 8 week Internship program offered at this generous rate would provide the crucial next step in my permaculture/regen ag pathway. The past 4-5 years have been filled with mind expanding and paradigm shifting knowledge and skills. After completing two PDC's (Ben Falk's intensive and Geoff Lawton's Online version) as well as several other workshops with the likes of Darren Doherty and Eric Toensmeier, I feel a longer, place based, focused internship is the final step for my educational pathway before begging my own venture. (especially in an area with climate analogues similar to my native North East U.S.)

Once completed, I'd take what I learned at Ridgedale and apply it in my own community here in the northeast, as this area is ripe and ready for a working model of a profitable and yet educationally demonstrative, permaculture enterprise.

Fotini Georgousi link

21/3/2015 08:48:05 am

Hello everyone at Ridgelade!

My name is Fotini, I am from Greece, and I am totally interested in the
8 week internship you are organizing this summer! I have been following
the development of this pioneering and inspiring project through the web
and I have been really interested in working and learning with you, so I
was very glad to find out that there is a possibility for a subsidized
spot, as this is the only option for me financially.

I have studied biology, organic farming and herbal medicine and I have
been also trained in ayurvedic healing practices and yoga. During the
past 10 years I have been involved in different projects in the fields of
sustainable food production, herbal medicine and community activism,
living and working in eco-communities, participating in community garden
groups and grass roots initiatives related to health and food sovereignty.

I am the co-founder of the Nea Guinea non-profit organization (NPO)
based in Athens, Greece, that has been in operation since 2009, focusing
mainly on the re-appropriation of our everyday lives in terms of food,
health, energy and shelter. For 6 years now, we have been organizing a
number of projects developing different alternative practices and
techniques on the above subjects and also promoting these practices as
tools for increasing self-sufficiency and resilience of people and communities.

Our projects aim to inform, educate, encourage and support people in
redefining their basic everyday needs and getting actively involved in
the production process in order to cover these needs, based on their
own knowledge and their own resources, becoming less dependent on the
goods and services of the global market.

Since 2009 we had been running a small social center in the center of
Athens, organising courses seminars and open informative events on the
above subjects and in 2012, we started working on the creation of a
rurban educational center in the outskirts of Athens, aiming at
developing a living example and a point of reference for the people
that intend to make the transition to rural or rurban life. For this
project we are offered a field of 0.4 hectares where we have been actively
experimenting with permaculture and other ecological design systems. In the summer of 2013, the Nea Guinea NPO moved to this site and is operating from there since. For more information on Nea Guinea you can visit our website www.neaguinea.org/english or the fb page: Nea Guinea.

Working for Nea Guinea for the past 6 years, I have been coordinating
different projects related to the re-appropriation of basic needs in
terms of food and health, including designing educational activities on
sustainable organic farming and herbal medicine as well as designing
and building sustainable small scale food and herb production systems.

I first came in contact with permaculture when we organized an
introductory course with Alfred Decker from Permacultura Barcelona in
our social center in Athens. At that time I realized that we had
already been intuitively experimenting with social permaculture for 5
years with our project Nea Guinea, and that what we were doing, was
actually very similar to what thousands of people are studying and
practicing throughout the world in the context of permaculture. Shortly
after that, I did a PDC with Rod Everett and Mill Millichap, then a
Regenerative Agriculture and Land Management Course with Darren J.
Doherty and a TTC with Rosemary Marrow, and now I am starting my diploma
with the Permaculture Assosiation of UK.

Spending two months working and learning in Ridgedale Farm will be a
great opportunity for me to deepen my understanding and develop my
skills in the design, implementation and maintenance of regenerative agricultural systems.
Furthermore, transferring all this knowledge and inspiration to the Nea
Guinea project back in Greece, will greatly reinforce the development of
our rurban educational center and it will also enhance the development
of one of our main goals, that of supporting small start up community
projects in rural Greece by providing design services and developing
technical infrastructure for these new transition alternatives.

Hope this was not too long!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

All the best,
Fotini

PS. Lastly, I would like to mention that for the last seven years, I am
running a small workshop producing organic herbal remedies, cosmetics
and soaps (www.naturalcollection.gr or f/b
page:www.facebook.com/naturalcollection.gr?fref=ts ) and if you are
interested on any of these skills, I would be more than happy to share.

Ben Blackburn

22/3/2015 10:31:01 am

Hello Ridgedale!

I've been following you guys online for the last year or so and have been hugely inspired by all of the videos, photos, and info made available to help me on my permaculture journey, so firstly I wanted to thank you for all of that!

During 2014 I spent the year living and working at an eco village in South East Queensland, Australia, where I took on the roll of gardener to produce food for our kitchen. After dabling in gardening for most of my life, it was a huge eye opener for me just how much time and people power it takes to produce food on even a small scale for the 10-15 residents. I loved spending my days in the garden, applying what I knew and ducking back and forth between the computer and the veggie patches after looking up "how to's" or "what plant is that", so much info I researched and applied which was great to see the results of. Sitting at our communal meals of an evening and knowing that the bulk of the veggies had come from our own garden was greatly satisfying and made me feel so fortunate to have space to grow. From everything I have learned, I would love to consolidate my knowledge through a PDC and learn even more about sustainable food systems and farm management.

Prior to my year as a gardener, I have been teaching Outdoor Education and Sustainability for the past 5 years in a range of school settings here in Australia. I now see a clear path of where I am headed, which involves setting up an Earth School here in Queensland. I want to inspire and educate kids of all ages on growing their own food, building their own shelter, and reconnecting with nature through time spent outdoors. My aim is to offer half, full, and multiple day programs at a low cost to local schools, with the hope of setting up ongoing visits such that students can begin projects on the land and stay connected with their progress, eventually reaping the rewards of their efforts. This would include raising plants from seed, preparing beds, planting, care during the growing season, and harvesting the same crops they sowed, such that they gain a sense of growing cycles and how long it takes to prepare the food they eat, instead of it just coming in plastic wrap from the supermarket shelves. This I hope will create some lasting change in the awareness of food systems in my local community over a long period of time.

This summer I am planning of spending 3-4 months travelling parts of Europe, visiting eco-villages and seeing what and how people are approaching land education over there. I'd like to try and do this as low cost as I can by hithchiking, WWOOFing, and generally helping out where ever I go :) To have the opportunity to do a Ridgedale PDC would be amazing, I have been really impressed by Richard's depth of knowledge on soils, planting schemes, and the level of detail and care he seems to put in to everything he does. A mark of a great teacher!

Thank you for the opportunity to be considered for a sponsired place, I think its an awesome thing that you are doing! I would love to be a part of the PDC in August and if there's any other info about me that you would like to know please feel free to get in touch,

Many thanks, Ben

Arthur Sevestre link

23/3/2015 09:36:54 am

Hiya,

Together with a good friend I'm right now searching for a farm to buy in Sweden to convert into a "permaculture food forest ecologically productive teaching facility community type thing". If we can find the perfect farm for our budget, fitting our requirements, we'll be ready to get to work on it before summer is over.

I hold a master's degree in biology, with a specialisation in ecology and environmental biology, and of all the experiences which can help work on the farm go well, that is the very least one. It was almost purely theoretical and focused far too much on how to make money out of understanding 'nature'. Moreover, there was plenty of attention for competition in 'nature', but hardly any for cooperation.

Shortly after, I moved from the Netherlands to Scotland. This coincided with a new and quickly growing interest in wild food, and so after a year or two I was able to keep myself alive and well-fed from late spring until late autumn when going on extended camping trips. Wild food also became a regular part of daily meals at home.

I was also interested in growing my own food, but this was not so easy because we (my mother and I) always rented a house (we had three during our six years in Scotland). I could do a little in each garden, as well in some of the gardens I worked in as a gardener, and the designs were increasingly inspired by permaculture ideas, but by the time the design would start to work well, we had to move again. I did study permaculture by reading and watching videos and trying as much of it as possible within the limits of a rented place.

During the last year in Scotland (2014) two friends and I proposed a permaculture food forest crofting community for a 1,000 acre ex conifer plantation which had been acquired by the local Community Trust where I lived then. We even had Sepp and Josef Holzer agree in principle on helping us out with design and parts of implementing it. Sadly, the Community Trust saw more benefits in their own idea of focusing almost exclusively on timber production, albeit with more diverse species and with a less rigid cutting regime. We were just getting ready to start a campaign to inform the local community of our plans and to show them how much more beneficial a crofting community operating on permaculture principles could be for a marginal community which is losing young people because of a severe lack of jobs, and where food comes from far far away, when our landlady told us she wanted to convert the house we were living in into a self-catering place. We couldn't find a place to rent nearby, and then we thought we'd look for an existing croft to buy instead, but none were available that we could afford in the whole of Scotland.

That was when a good friend of ours in Sweden (Lund), who's the one we'll be buying the farm with, showed us that farms in Sweden are much more affordable and generally much larger and in a better state. So... here we are.

Now, hopefully shortly before we get to work on our own farm, it feels as if it would be a very very good idea to get some actual hands-on experience and advice from people who've already done what we hope to do in the same country under roughly the same circumstances. I feel that, in theory, I know how to get started on a farm-scaled project, but in reality I know just enough to realise how little I know, certainly on the practical side. And then there's the networking side of things which comes with an internship, which is of great importance as well, certainly in a completely new country.

Money has become a very scarce thing after the move to Sweden with, as expected, always more expenses than expected. A subsidized spot, however, would make this internship possible.

Whatever your choice, I do hope to run into you people sooner or later!

Arthur

Martin

24/3/2015 07:06:37 am

I'm from Sweden and got interested in smallscale farming and permaculture eigth years ago. I've read a lot of pc books and watched a the movies I could find and 3 years ago me and my wife finally moved to a 16 acre farm in the highlands of Småland with the aim to switch from our present jobs to farming and homesteading. We've tried to do an overall design but we clearly lack the skills needed. I've been wanting to go for a PDC for a long time, but so far our three kids have taken too much of our time and the bank have taken most of our money so it hasn't worked out.

Pietro Giannini

24/3/2015 08:05:21 am

Hello up - there,

My name is Pietro, and I am an Italian landscape architect based in Paris. I have spent the last seven years working as a landscape architect around different countries: Australia (Sidney), Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Siena) and France (Paris). I am currently on a transition period rethinking about my future line of work.

I discovered the permaculture in France two years ago, during an introduction to the regenerative agriculture held by Pascal Depienne. After this experience I started to think deeply about a professional breakthrough, led by the need to refill my career with new motivations and competences.

As a consequence of all the previous I started digging into that direction. I did a couple of woofing experiences in France and one in Germany. Last autumn 2014 I started a project to manage an organic vegetable garden in Paris, focusing on urban agriculture. We set up the garden through public urban actions, complemented with operative workshops. Our goal is to promote and introduce urban population to agricultural practices and techniques for increasing their self-sufficiency and resilience. By now we have already finished the soil works and started planting the annual vegetable production.

Last January 2015 I lost my job as a landscape architect, for which now I have a full time commitment to the urban farm development, as well as to receive the many internships and introductions to the regenerative agriculture and agroforestry offered by the city council.

I feel enthusiastic about the line of work I have discovered, but the lack of actual working possibilities made me replan my future in Paris in the mid-term. To face that I am considering moving back to my hometown Sienna within the near future to activate a regenerative process design which was already proposed to the city council last December 2014 http://issuu.com/pietro.au/docs/la_valle_di_follonica Its main purpose is to recover a 20 ha agricultural valley, part of the historical centre in Sienna. The civic design practice would involve city residents and would be directed to both, the agriculture regeneration and the education.

The valley dimensions, goals and the planned surface turn it into a quite challenging project. The subsidized spot on 8 weeks internship would give me the knowledge I absolutely need to feed and manage it, and therefore it would be a powerful encouragement to take it up. Permaculture is almost unknown in Italy and every small step can really make a big difference.

I hope that your help will be part of this achievement.

Thank you for considering me.

All the best,

Pietro

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Subsidized spots on Summer PDC & 8 Week Internship Trainings @ Ridgedale Permaculture

THIS OFFER IS OPEN UNTIL 25TH March 2015...

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