DAY 55: Mainstreaming Permaculture
By Eugenio Lemos,Venancio Ferras in Ainaro Municipality, Timor-Leste, 1 September 2017
Eugenio (Ego) Lemos, co-author of the Tropical Permaculture Guidebook, presented Timor-Leste’s permaculture school garden program to 47 school teachers and parents in Central School Venancio Ferras. Permaculture in schools is a new program he designed to provide short and long-term educational, nutritional and environmental benefits to school children across Timor-Leste.
This school garden program is now part of Timor-Leste’s educational system. 1415 schools have been targeted under this program across the country. The program aims to help teachers and students to learn how to grow a variety of seasonal food crops that can contribute to the school feeding program, shifting from passive learning inside classrooms into activities outside the classroom, while providing a greener physical landscape to the school. Students and their parents learn how to apply the model into their home gardens to help improve the health and nutrition of school children and other family members.
The Permaculture system is a system that increases agriculture production without harming nature. It is culturally appropriate and makes communities more resilient to climate change. Timorese farmers grow different variety of crops such as corn, rice, banana, potatoes, yams and others that are specifically adapted to the area and the season. The Permaculture system requires a strong connection between food crops, trees, seeds, soil, water, animals and fish to create a viable ecosystem of benefit the local community.
