Warren Brush presents at the Tenth International Permaculture Conference
(IPC10), Amman, Jordan, September 2011
Photograph © Craig Mackintosh

I consider it a privilege to be a friend of Warren Brush, and it's been a pleasure to see his rapid development in all things Permaculture. In his presentation at the IPC10 (Amman, Jordan, September 2011) Warren took on the topic of peacemaking -- in his trademark style of very interesting storytelling, using examples from nature to teach us lessons and including examples from his experiences with indigenous peoples, and from conflict zones in Africa.

All in all you should find this a very worthy watch. Please click play below (and stay tuned for the message below the video!):

I want to also take this opportunity, after you've been inspired by Warren's active and sensitive labour for the beautiful people of Africa, to see if you might not contribute to the same? In December (2011, for those reading this after the fact) Warren will be teaching a course in Kenya, along with other African teachers. You'll see this advertised on PRI Kenya's recent update on the Worldwide Permaculture Network. There will be students from several countries attending, but there are still more worthy students we want to get to this course, but who do not have the finances for it. With a little bit of crowd-funding we'd be there in a flash!

One of the students is Victor Monroy, who it's actually hard to call a student, as he is an experienced teacher of organic biological agriculture, who I know from personal experience well understands the synergies in natural systems. Victor has been enthusiastically and stoically running a large orphanage in Rwanda since 2005. The reasons Victor should be there are manifold. He is very new to Permaculture, and I believe his presence at the course could make a big contribution to increasing the resiliency and potential of the orphanage he manages. Victor has, amongst many other things, been establishing an organic farm to sell produce to help finance the food, clothing, shoes and education of his wards -- many left in the wake of the Rwandan genocide and of HIV, etc. I've seen the case studies of many of his orphans. One, for example, who had been abandoned at the bottom of a pit toilet....

Just as I think Permaculture could provide Victor with more ideas, tools, resources and connections for his noble work, I also think Victor has a great deal to offer the Permaculture community as well! Getting Victor, Warren and the other experienced African Permaculturists together in one place, and having Victor immersed in a world class PDC, could ultimately bear a lot of fruit for the region. As such, I'm personally contributing US$200 to cover some of his course fee. The course organisers have halved the cost of the course (from US$950 to US$475) for Victor, who often doesn't even receive his already meager salary from the NGO he works for. That leaves US$275 outstanding to get Victor along.

As well as Victor, we have others like Edward Ejindu, wants to help solve the many ecological problems in his community in Nigeria.

100% of donations go to the purpose described above, and any excess will go to support PRI Kenya. Thanks for any help you can give!