Supporting the Spread of Zimbabwe Permaculture
In February 2012 we ran a story here at PRI about a film being made about a fantastic permaculture project in Zimbabwe. It was about a community called Chikukwa where permaculture has naturalized itself and over 22 years has moved a community of 7000 people from hunger and malnutrition to abundance. In a recent article about this, Australian academic Terry Leahy (who has been conducting research on food security projects in Africa since 2003) says he regards the Chikukwa project as the most successful he has encountered and the best model he has seen that would likely succeed in other parts of Africa.
Last year $2000 was raised for a pilot “train the trainer” programme to prepare the Chikukwa community to host a group of about 20 farmers from elsewhere in Zimbabwe. Following the successful conclusion of this training there is now a proposal (PDF) seeking $13,000 so that farmers from the poor community of Murehwa can travel to Chikukwa and be housed, fed and trained for two weeks in the permaculture skills that have allowed Chikukwa to thrive.
Yesterday two crowd-funding campaigns were launched, one which offers tax deductibility for US$ donations and one which offers tax deductibility for Aussie$ donations.
However, the main thrust of the campaign is hoping to get the project largely funded with hundreds of $5 and $10 donations by spreading it far and wide on Facebook.
So how about donating $5 via one of the two links just above, and then hitting the Facebook share button that pops up on your screen when you’ve done so and tell your Facebook friends “hey I just donated $5 to this important project, hope you can do the same”. It’ll take less than 5 minutes and all those 5 minutes and $5s will float this important boat.
Will you donate $5 to this and share on Facebook?
Further Reading:
- Permaculture Successes in a Zimbabwean Community
- The Chikukwa Permaculture Project (Zimbabwe) – The Full Story
