OTEPIC International Permaculture School in Eastern Africa

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1 Project Exposé OTEPIC International Permaculture School in Eastern Africa Summary: In Kitale, Western Kenya, OTEPIC ("Organic Technology Extension and Promotion of Initiative Centre") founded by Philip Munyasia, has been teaching theory and practical skills in organic agriculture and permaculture to people in slums and poor communities. With these skills, people are now able to efficiently grow diverse crops on small plots of land. With two demonstration gardens, a seminar room, and many volunteers of all ages from throughout the whole town, OTEPIC has already been able to improve the lives of more than 2000 farmers, women, and youths in Kitale and the whole district. Permaculture has been shown to be a proper tool for people that are struggling to survive, for food security, for the empowerment of women, and for environmental protection in times of climate change. To make its work even more effective, and to reach more people, the OTEPIC team is looking for supporters and donors to realize some important investments for the two demonstration gardens, for the monthly operational costs - and for its big vision, a permaculture school for Eastern Africa. Eastern Africa has been exposed to large scale agricultural mismanagement, mainly by Europeans entering the country to benefit from the exploitation of its fertile soils. This has resulted in erosion, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, desertification and water shortages. To restore a natural balance and revitalise the landscape, it is necessary to make corrections on an equally large scale. OTEPIC's long-term aim is to create a community-oriented model based on natural water management to reverse the present destruction and afford the people of the region an ecologically sustainable life. Further measures to ensure sustainability are cooperation with nature, reforestation, permaculture, and peace and community building (including in times of tribal clashes). To achieve this, OTEPIC envisions the foundation of an International Permaculture School for Eastern Africa that will teach Permaculture, including the use of Water Retention Landscapes. The school is to be embedded in an Ecovillage with a guesthouse to further international exchange. A suitable site has already been identified. Local authorities have responded positively, and international support is forthcoming. The project is to be realized through independent funding.

2 Project Exposé OTEPIC International Permaculture School in Eastern Africa The Aim: To create a Permaculture School for Kenya and Eastern Africa. The school will be a model for social and ecological sustainability, a place to reinstall the African dream of nature, hospitality and abundance, a training site to explore and share the knowledge of regional autonomy in water, food and energy supply, an ecovillage including a Permaculture Training Center and a guesthouse for international guests, youth exchange, and volunteers. The situation: Kenya is a nation of great cultural and biological diversity, original beauty and an abundance of sun, water, and rich soils. Kitale, in Western Kenya, has been a center of intensive and globalised agricultural production for many years. The depletion of soil and nature, the climate change, and social injustice challenge us to transform our agricultural practices by employing sustainable methods. The peoples and tribes of this region have been traditional farmers; they have known how to grow rich and diverse food in a sustainable way. In some communities, the memory of these sustainable methods is still with the older people, and is, therefore, still accessible. However, most of the population today is extremely poor. Most people have only tiny plots of land if any at all, and many lack the basic necessities of life: clean water, sufficient food, a place to live, and prospects for the future of their young people. What is OTEPIC? Mitume is the poorest neighbourhood of Kitale, a slum. But it is also a place of hope, solidarity and great creativity. In its very centre, among dirty huts, garbage and streams of sewage water, a surprise awaits the visitor: a lush, green garden with bright sunflowers and a great variety of healthy vegetables growing in mixed cultures. It is the OTEPIC school garden, occupying a plot of 21 x 21 m. The nearby OTEPIC centre (a large room, for which rent is donated by its owners) is always open for everyone to visit, read, watch educational videos, and share. Groups and community members of all ages use the place to meet, learn, and create dances or theatre pieces. Seminars for permaculture, as well as for family planning and other important topics take place here on a regular basis. In spite of the pervasive poverty, nobody here would steal or destroy things from the garden or the centre. All the neighbours protect it. They are proud of it, and many people from the whole town come to volunteer, to learn, and make the place ever more beautiful. OTEPIC is an example of the miracles that poor people in pressing situations can create through self help if just one person starts to make a change. Philip Munyasia: "OTEPIC was born out of the passion for sharing knowledge and innovative approaches to community Permaculture with those who need it most: farmers, groups of women and youths." History of OTEPIC Philip Odhiambo Munyasia (29), the founder of OTEPIC, grew up in Mitume as the youngest of 8 sons and had the rare opportunity to visit a high school. Afterwards, he started to teach people in

3 his neighbourhood how to grow their own food and improve their situation. Eager to learn more, he was given the opportunity to do an internship in the Permaculture farm Ecology Action in California, and later, to take part in the Global Campus training program in Tamera/Portugal where he became familiar with Holzer s permaculture. To the surprise of his friends and clients, he has returned to his poor neighbourhood after every visit abroad, and has not spent the money he raised for private purposes. Instead, he has developed a deep wish to change the situation of his people and has acquired ideas for how to do it. The residents of the Mitume community and surrounding areas enthusiastically joined the effort and OTEPIC formally became a registered (Community Based Organization (CBO)) in 2008 by the Kenyan ministry of social services. OTEPIC has a board of directors which work with the management to develop short and long range planning based on objectives and to ensure sound operation. Achievements: Since its inception, OTEPIC has made great progress in helping local people integrate proven permaculture methods. Over 2,000 participants from approximately 25 community groups have been trained on permaculture practices and have integrated this knowledge in their farms and gardens. OTEPIC has also promoted numerous grassroots initiatives such as growing portable gardens, making charcoal briquettes, building solar food driers, advocating for humane animal treatment, educating about nutrition for HIV/AIDS, and organizing trash clean-up days. OTEPIC could support many groups and individuals to change their situation profoundly. Instead of growing only corn in a monoculture which does not sustain them, they now grow a rich diversity of grains and vegetables, harvest several times a year, and do all this with less irrigation and without any chemicals. Nancy Opelle from Maili Saba, a community and women s initiative which has been learning from Philip Munyasia since 2005, says, "Nobody goes hungry anymore, not even at the end of the dry season. Our children are healthy because they get a diverse diet. And the money that we save by not using chemical fertilizers helps to buy their school books." In 2010, OTEPIC was able to start a second demonstration garden, the Amani ( Peace ) garden in Bidii, another extremely poor neighbourhood in Kitale. The money for buying the land was donated by coworkers of the Lush Company in the UK. Here, OTEPIC constructed a traditional clay hut with a grass roof as a shelter. Additionally, they were able to obtain the rarely granted permission for drilling a borehole. The money for drilling was donated by Elke and Felix Woschek of Germany and other private donors from the USA. Groundwater was found at 72 m. In March 2012, OTEPIC opened a solar driven Water Kiosk, where the whole community can get free and clean drinking water. In the future, when OTEPIC is able to start the Permaculture School, the organization will donate the Amani Garden as a home for the homeless children and orphans of Kitale.

4 Philip Munyasia: I want the children to feel loved, appreciated, protected and provided for. This centre will also be used as a place to teach young children how easily they can live in harmony with nature without destroying it. Contact: Philip Odhiambo Munyasia, Coordinator: otepic07@yahoo.com Blog: (soon to be) Mailing Address: PO Box , Kitale, Kenya

5 How to support OTEPIC To improve its important work at the present level, OTEPIC wishes to manifest the following: - A Training Hall and Sleeping House for Amani Garden To teach more people, and to host and accommodate them, the Amani garden needs two buildings to serve as a training hall and a sleeping house. Later, when the dream of the Kenyan Permaculture School has come true, OTEPIC wants to donate these houses as homes for the street children of Kitale where they can be introduced to permaculture and contact with nature at an early age. - Greenhouse for the Amani Garden For permaculture research, for trying out new varieties of growing methods, and for natural pest control, a greenhouse can be a great advantage for gaining food security. Greenhouses enable farmers to grow crops in all seasons, thus providing food security. The planned greenhouse in the Amani garden will also be used as a teaching aid for farmers to learn how to manage greenhouse cultivation. - Sponsor Circle to Cover the Operational Costs of the Permaculture Seminars OTEPIC wishes to share its knowledge with as many people as possible and to teach permaculture and organic sustainability practices. The targeted people are poor and not able to pay for the seminars or to cover the costs. This is why regular support is needed to ensure training for various groups of women, youths and the community in general. OTEPIC invites friends and supporters to join the OTEPIC sponsor circle by donating an amount of money of your choice every month. This regular income will be used for: - Extension and project activities, - Permaculture training, - Fiscal management, - Team building group dynamic, - Farmer evaluation team exercise, - Training materials development, - Seed exchange program field days - Office material - Farm tools Join the Real Food Revolution Come together in communities Grow abundance in mixed cultures - without any chemicals Recycle your organic waste and make compost Learn to treat water as a living being Be friendly to animals Make income from the surplus Save your seeds Cook with Solar Energy or Biogas Share with your neighbours and join the global food revolution.

6 OTEPIC s big vision: The OTEPIC Permaculture School in East Africa - a Model for Alternative Water Management, Food Security, and Peace Community Building Healing the land on a larger scale All the local improvements and achievements that farmers can do on small plots cannot disguise the overall situation of the region: Kenya is a land with severe symptoms of climate change, loss of biodiversity and ongoing desertification. Overgrazing, deforestation and industrial agriculture threaten the hydrological balance and - if continued - will make farming and a sustainable lifestyle impossible in the future. Mistakes have been made on a large scale - mainly by Europeans coming to this continent. Thus, the corrections also have to be made on a large scale. The ecological visionary Sepp Holzer from the Austrian Alps has demonstrated globally how these corrections can be made and how the water balance can be restored in deep cooperation with nature. A Water Retention Landscape is being realized at the Peace Research Center Tamera in Portugal. Its effects are already showing that the negative effects of climate change and desertification can be reversed by local means: biodiversity is coming back, the soil is recovering from the droughts, forests can be replanted, and a rich, edible landscape can be installed on the terraces of lakes and ponds. This system can be applied in every climatic region of the world and has the best effect in areas which are threatened by erosion and desertification. Also, the semi-deserts of East Africa could turn into fertile and diverse countries again, once the water balance is recovered. To be able to explore and show the full range of these possibilities, including organic architecture, solar energy, community building, and peacework among different tribes, and thus to really create hope and perspectives for the youth, requires a model of a reasonable size. This means land. Land ownership is another very critical issue in Kenya. Land is extremely hard to get, and if one can get it, then it is very expensive. Much of the land has been sold to foreign agrobusiness companies. This practise, called land grabbing, strips Kenyan people of their rights and of the ability otosustain themselves and grow their own food. Under these conditions, they need to learn how to use small spaces to cultivate many diverse foods in a sustainable way. For this, the ideal option is a Permaculture School with a diverse demonstration ground, embedded in an interested and protective community, accessible for many people throughout the country. OTEPIC has been given the opportunity to buy land: The owners of the Mbai Farm, a traditional and well-regarded farming family, want to support OTEPIC s work and sell them 30 acres (12 ha) of their site for a relatively reasonable (for Kenya) price. The land, 15 minutes outside of Kitale, is perfect for creating an international Permaculture School: It holds much beauty, abundance, and magic. The gentle slope with altitude differences of ca. 35 m., borders on a meandering creek, which does not dry out in the dry season, and its water table is

7 very shallow. The site holds a large variety of indigenous plants, both wild and cultivated, as well as many trees, ranging from mango to avocado and papaya. There are also several hectares of kikuyu grass which is being used for the traditional roofs and, in general, has become very rare due to the use of agricultural chemicals. A traditional fish pond with several hundred Tilapia is also based on the site. The soil is rich in clay which is still being used to construct traditional African houses. The owner, Alfred Nandasaba, a pastor with great influence in the community, claims that he wants to be the first permaculture student to learn to cultivate in a natural and effective way. The site is perfect for starting the next level of OTEPIC s task and realizing the dream of a Permaculture School and a model for East Africa. It will hold: - A water retention landscape of several water retention spaces to restore the hydrologic balance and repair the effects of erosion. This method was invented by Sepp Holzer, a mountain farmer and permaculture specialist from Austria, and it is a means that can be applied in all different climatic situations; - A school farm to grow all kinds of food in mixed cultures, including animals like pigs, indigenous chickens and ducks, and fish; - An ecovillage of traditional African houses for the coworkers, including a guesthouse for international guests and a permaculture training center; - A youth educational place including a solar energy workshop to teach future professions such as solar engingeering.

8 Costs: Amani Garden Training Hall: Sleeping House: Greenhouse: 7,147 Euros 6,692 Euros 1,830 Euros International Permaculture School The land costs 5000 Euro per acre, which is a total sum of Euro. The owner s family promised to keep the price stable and to give OTEPIC the first right to buy. Nevertheless, it would be good to have soon in order to claim the land. More funding will be needed later for the construction of the lakes and the ecovillage. Donations: As the transfer of money to a Kenyan bank account from Europe is complicated, we have found two cooperation partners who have offered to transfer the donated money without any charges to OTEPIC. Just use the keyword OTEPIC. For Tax Deductible Donations in Switzerland: Grace Foundation For transfers in Euro: Raiffeisenbank Zürich Account holder: Grace - Stiftung zur Humanisierung des Geldes, Zürich Acct. No.: IBAN: CH BIC: RAIFCH22 Clearing (The bank's PC account: ) For transfers in CHF: Raiffeisenbank Zürich Account holder: Grace - Stiftung zur Humanisierung des Geldes, Zürich Acct. No.: IBAN: CH BIC: RAIFCH22 Clearing (The bank's PC account: ) For Tax Deductible Donations in Germany: Intercultural Peacefoundation - IPF Account holder: Amrita e.v. w / Interkulturelle Friedensstiftung Merck Finck & Co München Acct. No.: BLZ: IBAN: DE BIC: MEFIDEMM