Our Foundation has once again received development funding from the Erasmus+ Adult Education programme. After 26 people, including Agro-Perma-Lab’s members participated in trainings in La Bolina project in Andalusia, now we will focus only on our team. We will visit organisations and communities in different European countries to develop our permacultural and agro-ecological skills, learn new training methods and how to build sustainable communities.
The aim of the project EduGlow is to improve our competencies so that we can enrich the educational programme we offer and better respond to the needs of the participants of our trainings and workshops. We have planned visits to a various organisations and communities, because we want to develop a comprehensive approach to education: one that combines elements of permaculture, agroecology and social skills. Our goal is to teach how to work with the land, develop civil society competences and the ability to act in empathetic and supportive groups.
Twelve job shadowing trips and four course trips – so much good awaits us in the coming months!
During a job shadowing visit the participant observes closely the work of an organization of her/his choice with a similar profile to our Foundation. The aim is to gather good practices and learn more about the training methodology and ways of organising activities in order to adapt them to our environment and local needs. Through in-depth discussions with members of the visited organisation, the visitor can learn what difficulties similar institutions abroad face and how they deal with these difficulties. As part of the project, eight people will observe the work of organisations in Germany, Norway, Spain and Portugal for a total of more than six months.
Among others, we will visit the Priznessinengarten in Berlin. It is an organisation renowned for its civic action and for involving Berliners in shaping urban spaces and local policies on ecology, food sovereignty and climate change adaptation. Agro-Perma-Lab members, Klaudia and Paulina, will learn about the tools used to engage the local, diverse community to fight climate change and strengthen the food sovereignty movement.
We will also return to La Bolina, a wonderful community located in the south of Spain that hosted us for four trainings in autumn 2022. La Bolina is a project combining permaculture and regenerative agriculture, attempting to repopulate a rural area characterised by high emigration to cities and supporting people with experiences of migration. During our stay in La Bolina, we will develop skills of cooperation and community building of a solidarity-based local economy.
Through a visit to the Norwegian Permaculture Association, Joanna will deepen her competences in preparing and teaching permaculture education classes and participate in study visits to demonstration farms and community gardens.
We will also be learning new topics! Aleksandra will visit the Netherlands, where she will observe the creation of green roofs, a great tool to combat the climate change in cities. Aleksandra will develop her skills in starting a rooftop garden, improve her knowledge of the plant species grown there and learn about the techniques and tools used to establish such crops.
During the visits, all participants will also learn participatory and democratic facilitation methods for workshops and trainings and methods for social-ecological transformation in both rural and urban areas.
Joanna, Klaudia, Paulina and Aleksandra will also take part in courses to deepen their coaching skills. The Agro-Perma-Lab members will visit Catalonia and Tenerife in Spain, where they will expand their knowledge of modern methods of environmental education and inclusive permaculture education. The courses will allow them to learn about new workshop tools and activities, which will be incorporated into our Foundation’s educational offerings at a later stage.
We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to develop our competences! The visits and the experiences gained will be extremely life-giving soil from which we will use to build holistic educational programmes. It will be great to share this goodness with you!
The “EduGlow” project is funded by the European Union within the framework of the Erasmus+ project.
