Permaculture part 2 – the school bit

As mentioned in the earlier blog post, I’ve been in Kilifi county, visiting a project run by Norbert and Asilomar foundation. Kilifi is in eastern Kenya, right on the Indian ocean, and Asilomar is Swahili for ‘refuge by the sea’ – perfect name!

Norbert’s focus is introducing the concept of permaculture as a means of achieving some level of food security for the community in which he lives. This community have lost their previous and traditional livelihood of fishing due to commercial fishing trawlers squeezing them out, and the result is a community which has lost its identity. It is also a community with very little knowledge of farming and agriculture which is proving to be a massive disadvantage with regard to trying to put food on the table.

As well as setting up his own demonstration gardens, Norbert and his permaculture buddy Lennox have spent the past few months setting up a permaculture training programme in the nearby secondary school. I had the opportunity to go and visit it this week and meet some of the students.

Just over the back from Norbert’s home is a secondary school which has about 27 acres of land. Some of this is used for the school campus (it’s a boarding school) and games fields, but a lot of it stands idle. When Norbert approached them to ask about setting up the permaculture project, they were very keen to engage, and the project has gone really well.

In April, 40 or so students took part in a 3-day permaculture training program which introduced them to all the basics and provided some practical opportunities to put the lessons into practice in the Asilomar demo plots. Around the same time, a plot at the school was being cleared of rocks and ploughed by local labour so that it was ready for planting. Apparently if the students had been asked to complete this task it might never have happened!

In May, the first seeds and seedlings were planted. In one half of the plot, the students planted loads of rows of cowpeas (a type of legume which they eat as greens rather than waiting for the peas). In the other half of the plot, the students planted a mix of fruit trees, grasses, vegetables (tomatoes, carrots, kale). When I visited, just 7 weeks after that initial sowing, the students had already harvested their first crop of cowpeas and sold them by the handful to teachers and community members. In so doing they made 6,200 KSh (about £38), of which they’ve used 5,000 to buy a new hose to assist with more efficient watering of the crops. The second crop of cowpeas was growing well, and the other crops were also at various stages of harvesting. Every day some of them go down to the plot and water the crops, and keep on top of the weeding. They are all so dedicated, and there's already talk of starting a second plot.

I was so impressed! So much achieved in such a short time and the students were so positive about their new knowledge and skills. Some of the boarding students were saying how they are going to introduce their parents to the new farming techniques when they go home for the holidays. Some of the day students were equally saying how they want to put the techniques into practice at their homes. In reality this will probably also be in school breaks as their term-time week consists of being in school from 6am – 6pm Monday – Saturday, and then they have homework to do after that. So not a lot of time during termtime for anything else.

For some of the students, the opportunity to put the techniques into practice seems less accessible. Some of them were saying how they don’t have land at their home that they can use, nor do they have a garden anywhere else. NB some of the families who don’t have land around their home rent small plots of land elsewhere so that they can grow their own crops – this clearly isn’t the case for all of the students. Other students do have some land around their homes, but it is so rocky that growing crops isn’t viable. As a result of the experiences of those students, Norbert and Lennox have ensured that some training includes learning options on how to do container gardening. The container might be tyres, or those big water cooler containers, or old sacks. And sometimes the containers are on the ground, other times they are on the roof. But it’s good to see that they are catering for those from all socio-economic situations.

An off-shoot that is organically developing from this programme are the conversations that Norbert and Lennox have been able to have with students on a one-on-one basis – it’s almost as though informal mentoring has started to appear. Chatting with Norbert about this he is certainly recognising that there is a need to explore this side of things more and maybe include it in a more intentional way in future projects. Will wait and see what comes on that front.

It's been a real joy to see the work of Norbert and Asilomar. He is certainly starting to create inroads into the community with regards to potential for much better food security, and I’m looking forward to returning in months to come – to see how it has all progressed more, and to ensure the refuge by the sea!