<<-- Back to the course calendar
Ten-week Internship Program, Permaculture Research Institute, Zaytuna Farm, NSW
Starts Jan 21, 2013 and runs for 50 day(s).
The Permaculture Research Institute, led by Geoff and Nadia Lawton, now offer a ten-week curriculum-based internship program, aimed at fast-tracking the development of permaculture-based knowledge in a wide range of specific subjects. This is an ideal way to fast-track your ability to establish and maintain your own permaculture project and/or get started on a career as a permaculture consultant and/or educator.
Note: The 10-week Internship is best suited for self-motivated people who already possess some life experience. As an intern you will be exposed to a great many opportunities to learn. Making the most of these opportunities is critical to your learning success. Getting up early each day and getting involved in farm life alongside Geoff and others, rather than being just passive listeners in class, will help ensure you come away with the confidence to subsequently design and implement your own permaculture solutions. It represents a wonderful opportunity for students who are prepared to accept the challenge. Please also note that until the new building development is completed, accommodation is camping in the great Aussie outdoors.
Zaytuna Farm's straw bale buildings
Duration: Ten weeks (fifty days of instructional time, or 75 days including weekends), to begin following each of the year's three PDC courses. (The internship program will be run three times per year, each beginning after the first three of the four PDCs run through the year.) Internship Farm Hours: 11 hours a day, 7am to 6pm, including meals and breaks: breakfast 8.30am to 9.00am, morning tea break 10.30am to 11am, lunch 12.30pm to 1.30pm, afternoon tea break 3pm to 3.30pm, dinner 5pm to 6pm, 55 hours a week, 5 days a week Monday to Friday. Total 550 hours. Cost: $7,700 including GST (equates to $770 per week) Cost includes: The Ten Week Internship Program includes five 5-day subject-specific courses - a Permaculture Earthworks Course, Permaculture Project Establishment Course course, Learn how to Teach Permaculture Creatively course, Urban Permaculture Design Course and Sustainable Soils Management course - which are all also open to the public, at a cost of $1100, saving each intern a total of $1,650. (You as an intern are paying $770 a week, which includes the courses that are open to the public which are normally $1100 each. So five courses taken outside the internship program = $5500. Five courses taken inside the intern program = $3,850.) See detailed info on respective courses via our course listing page. Catering: Our courses are fully catered from our practical farmhouse kitchen with our full-time farm chef and assistant chef. We provide as much basic fresh food from the farm as we can to supply our large number of students, and farm workers, in the form of vegetables, herbs, fruit, goat and cow dairy and farm killed meat products of beef, chicken, duck, rabbit and fish. The bulk products we order in are organic and the meals we serve are of a wholesome farm menu type, which include preserved, fermented and dried surplus products from the farm. We offer an option of our meals without meat products for vegetarians, any variations to basic meat or vegetarian diet we are not able to cater for, so students with specialised diets need to supplement their meals with their own food purchases. Accommodation: Campground facilities with 10 raised roofed platforms for tent sites, flat grassed camping area for large tents, and camper vans. Modern compost toilet and shower with good hot water supplied by a rocket stove mass heater. Requirements: Student must have completed a PDC and provide a certificate as proof. Practical work experience: During the 10 weeks of the internship, there are 5 short specialized courses. Permaculture Earthworks Course, Permaculture Project Establishment Course course, Learn how to Teach Permaculture Creatively course, Urban Permaculture Design Course and Sustainable Soils Management Course. Outside of the 5 specialized courses the 5 weeks of practical experience education start each day in the classroom for a task team meeting and finish each day with recap Q and A plus student diary entries. Themes: Monday - Zone 1 Tuesday - Zone 2 Wednesday - Zone 3 Thursday - Zone 4 Friday - Zone 5 |
The Internship Curriculum will cover:
- Detailed Design and Consultancy
- Surveying
- Earth Works
- Aid Project Establishment
- Farm Forestry
- Nursery Systems
- Animal Systems, small to large
- Fencing systems
- Main Crops
- Food Forests
- Fuel Wood Production
- Kitchen Gardens
- Urban Systems
- Garden Agriculture
- Architecture Design
- Energy Systems
- Waste Systems
- Aquaculture
- Community Group Establishment
- Composting systems
You can download the Internship Scope and Sequence PDF here, for more information.
Zaytuna Farm:
Zaytuna Farm is an operational permaculture-learning center (training field) that has an ongoing development program. With the farm under constant development, projects vary and change throughout the year but some of the things a student might expect to experience include forestry, crop gardens and nursery, animal husbandry, general farm maintenance, water systems, consultancy, alternative energy systems, natural building methods, surveying as well as the experience of communal living.
A stay at Zaytuna Farm gives a practical permaculture experience which builds on your initial Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course foundation. All students are fully included in everything that takes place using a rotating roster system to allocate the sharing of daily jobs. Projects around the farm are progressive, working with both the development of the students as well as the property as a whole. Overall, the experience of working at Zaytuna Farm makes for a sound introduction to working on other permaculture projects including international aid work.
Interns will be fully engaged with the running of Zaytuna Farm and take responsibility of all systems from zone 1 through to zone 5. Included in the process will be five specialist courses.
The day to day running of the farm will be the responsibility of the interns as is the development of new systems as part of their course project presentations at the end of the internship. Teaching staff will mentor the interns through this process so that they gain complete confidence in running and developing a diverse permaculture project site.
These daily tasks will involve: large and small animal systems, small to large garden systems, water systems, waste systems, nursery systems and the people systems of the farm.
This is a pro-active specialised team building exercise where we all work together - staff and the students as project management and development - so the people systems are something that can take on a new direction and develop towards an improved system that is continuously evolving.
The Permaculture Research Institute caters to people from many cultures and as such, to help maintain a comfortable stay for all, students are asked to follow a code of conduct during their visit to Zaytuna.
Map
Important information about this course
Pricing options
All prices are in Australian dollars. The fee for the course is $7,700 - including GST, and including meals. A non-refundable $770 deposit is required at time of booking. The balance of $6,930 is due at least six weeks prior to the course start date. Note: Late bookings - those made less than six weeks before course commencement - incur a late booking penalty charge of 10%.
How to Pay: You can pay via Paypal, credit card, direct bank deposit or cheque. Click here for details.
Information on directions, accommodation/facilities and Visas can be found here.
For further information for this course please contact education@permaculture.org.au.
Course pricing / bookings
Prices in Australian dollars
| $770 | Non-refundable deposit to lock in booking | This price has expired |
| $7700 | Normal price, including GST, for internship program (including other courses mentioned above) | This price has expired |
| $8470 | Late Booking Penalty Price (10% extra) for bookings made less than six weeks before course commencement | This price has expired |
