THE CROWD FUNDING CAMPAIGN FOR THE ITALIAN VERSION OF MOLLISON´S DESIGNERS´ MANUAL

Last September the European Permaculture Convergence took place in Italy, that is in a charming location called Bolsena, a small town lying on the shores of huge volcanic lake where swans use to swim peacefully on the mesmerizing water surface reflecting the colours of sky and hills.

The giant sycamore trees scattered all around seem to be standing there as the loving and protective arms of our Mother Earth. There could not really be a better meeting point for permaculturists coming from all over the world, since this suspended atmosphere makes everyone smell harmony and peace in the air.

It´s quite heart-warming watching people strolling joyfully along the narrow alleys of this medieval town centre and smiling at each other, driven by the sense of belonging to the “same family”.

and

Here nationality, age, skin colour, religion don´t make any difference because they are truly considered valuable features of human biodiversity.

During the whole Convergence week participants can not only experience moments of deep spiritual connection just like the “Cerimony for Mother Earth” lead by Alberto Ruz Buenfil and Starhawk, but they can also attend very interesting thematic workshops and talks held by renowned permaculture experts like Rosemary Morrow, Andy Goldring, John Button, Pandora Thomas and many many more.

As a matter of fact education has always played a big role within the permaculture community: because the more information is spread, the better we can all act. And it is definitely about time to act and to take responsibility for our own actions.

This is basically one of the reasons why the members of MEDIPERlab association (www.mediperlab.com) have chosen to present their undertaking at the Convergence by holding a talk session and welcoming people at their small gazebo standing in Bolsena´s central square.

The challenge here is about publishing the Italian translation of Bill Mollison´s masterpiece “Permaculture, A Designers´Manual”, a textbook that represents the best tool to fully understand and correctly apply permaculture principles by designing natural landscapes as well as human society.

It´s been a month that the father of Permaculture has passed away and now it is our turn to make our best in order to spread his teachings and notions by making them accessible to anybody.

Over the last year MEDIPERlab has created a work group made of young professionals with different skills and different backgrounds and they have been working with great passion and motivation in order to effectively convey in Italian language all the notions and concepts that Mollison had synthesized in his Manual.

However besides the time, energy and competence invested in this project, further funds are required to finally print the Italian version of this book. For this reason MEDIPERlab took the chance in Bolsena to kindly ask the whole community to join the related crowd funding campaign and help raise the budget needed for fulfilling the dream and spreading permaculture in a country, Italy, whose beautiful landscapes are more and more subject to degradation and pollution.

Crowd funding video

The feedback received and the interest shown by most of the EUPC participants have been overwhelming: MEDIPERlab team had not really expected to be embraced and encouraged in such a loving way.
Many people got intrigued by this difficult undertaking; many others were fully supporting the project and the movement growth. Over 200 people subscribed MEDIPERlab´s newsletters in order to stay in touch and develop a solid permaculture network. But there was one man in particular, a green building professional aged 56, who left us speechless as he said with teary eyes: “I can´t believe it… I´ve been waiting for 22 years, but now I will finally be able to read Mollison´s Manual. Thank you so much guys!”

That unforgettable moment was deeply touching and it motivated us even more to do our best and achieve this important goal. Because we do know that there are thousands of potential readers out there that would need to have access to such important notions.

Today much has been done and a certain sum of money has been raised, but the path to go is still long and steep. Nonetheless we believe that permaculture ethics are truly shared and so there´s nothing that we, as a community, won´t be able to achieve. Everybody´s small contribution can make the difference and be the missing piece in the puzzle.

This is not just an Italian cause, because everyone´s concerned: if we really “care for the people”, it is our task to help share permaculture knowledge by encouraging also other countries to translate the Manual into their mother language and promote education.

So let´s get involved in the project and support this good cause by visiting the page: https://buonacausa.org/cause/manuale

Nota bene: Donations from outside EUROPE can be received through PayPal only. Many thanks to all of you for supporting this project.
Marilena Cassano