Thailand: Sustainable Living Community: Panya Project
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Sawasdee to all! Its been quite a while since I updated most of you about the happenings of the Panya Project (the sustainable living project formerly known at The Baan Thai Project). I wanted to tell you what we've done, as well as give you a head's up about the workshops and internships that we are hosting this next year. Please forward this letter on to aonyone who might be interested in hearing about this project. We'd appreciate that. It's been quite a year, and a dream come true! In just one year's time, the Panya Project, located about 60km north of Chiang Mai, Thailand, has gone from being a grassy mango plantation to a thriving education center. The past year saw the faces of over 300 people, most of whom came to lend a hand or take a course. In November 2006, thirty students, including seven of the founding members of the project completed a Permaculture Design Course on the land. The course produced the integrated design for the layout of Panya, including a two million liter dam at the top of the hill, a system of water catching swales, a very diverse edible food forest, and a beautiful community and education center. We have begun the process of fulfilling this dream, and are having a great time doing it! The rains have descended bringing relief from the heat. The plants are happy, and it is the best time to plant. Our nursery, which has been gradually building throughout the year, has over 2000 plants waiting to be planted, including over 30 varieties of fruit,* lots of edible and medicinal herbs, veggies, beautiful flowers and hundreds of legume trees for building soil. The process of building brought a huge amount of activity. There have been three permaculture courses held on site, two and a half earthen buildings constructed, and a 2500 square foot "sala" for dorm, kitchen, dining, classroom and more, which served as the center of the community. We also hosted 8th graders from the International School of Bangkok, and built earthen houses with them. This next year a group of high school students from the same school will spend a week with us, in addition to the visit by the 8th grade. We were blessed to see so many visitors and so much interest in what we were doing. There is still a lot more to build to complete the design that we have laid out. To complete this vision (which actually never happens; it's an on-going process!), it works wonderfully for us to continue to hold courses, host schools, have visitors, and host interns. This coming year we are setting our sights even higher; a couple more Permaculture Design Courses, in November and May, the high-school week and a natural building internship starting January 15th. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who visited, helped out, took a course or simply gave their support. This year has truly been a dream come true, and I hope it continues. If you haven't yet visited our project, please know that you are welcome (almost) anytime. Come join in the fun, building our houses, our dreams, and ourselves. If you want to stop by, please don't hesitate to e-mail us: panyaproject@gmail.com If you are interested in one of the courses, there is more information below, and we always try to hook up family and friends with a special deal. Also, please share this e-mail with anyone you think might be interested, as we would love to get the word out. It would be a great thing for our community if we could fill the courses with positive minded folks and have people dropping in to help out. It not only helps us to build our vision, but keeps us energized for more. There are pictures of our project and descriptions of the courses on our website: (Please excuse the informality of it, as we like to spend as little time on the computer as we can!) I hope you are loving life, and I wish you the best. I may see you next summer back in the USA for a few months! ALL MY LOVE AND MORE! *The fruits are: mango, macadamia nut, avocado, passion fruit, oranges, pomelo, jackfruit, coconut, pineapple, custard apple, rambutan, longan, lychee, black sapote, pomegranate, lime, papaya, banana, chestnut, cashew, starfruit, tamarind, malay gooseberry, canistel, surinam cherry, malabar chestnut, guava, malay apple, jamaican cherry, lamut, mangosteen, zalacca, mulberry, and others! We also have coffee, neem, moringa and others. Within 3-5 years 75 percent of them with be fruiting, and within seven years they should all be fruiting. Livin' the good life! Please find a quick description of the courses below. For a full description and registration info, visit our website: Certified Permaculture Design Course, November 5-20 This course, taught by Chris Shanks, a permaculture teacher with a rich background in tropical permaculture, will be a 16 day, 72-hour Permaculture Certificate Course. The course, appropriate for first time and experienced permaculturists alike, will equip a person with all the skills and resources needed to make an informed permaculture design for any piece of land in any climate. Come and join us at the Panya Project for 16 days of intensive and enjoyable permaculture instruction. Read more about it at: Natural Building Internship, January 15 - March 15 Come join us for our two or three-month internship in natural building! The internship will be focused on the construction of an innovative two-story round dormitory space and will primarily be built using adobe and "wattle and cob" natural building techniques. We are excited about the proposed structure: it will be an ambitious project with ten rooms, a large deck, and an open central room for airflow and community gatherings. The building is designed to be a multi-use housing for interns, workshops students and other guests, and each room with have its own funky nature. This design will bring with it a number of challenges and creative opportunities that the builders and interns will tackle during the spring of 2008. The Internship is the first of its kind at the Panya Project and is intended to be a hands-on learning experience. Interns will be involved in every part of the design and building process as it occurs. We will be working with a combination of adobe, carpentry and "wattle and cob" (a local variation of the widely practiced wattle and daub). Through their stay at the Panya Project, interns will become very versed in the art of natural building, gaining all the skills necessary to build their own home with these techniques. Interns will also, through the nature or living at our site, be involved in permaculture design, organic farming, community living, and lots of laughter. Bring you dirty clothes and a big smile, as it should be a great spring! Read more about it at: Permaculture Design Course, May 2008 With Christian Shearer and the people of the Panya Project, Chiang Mai, Thailand This full 72-hour certified Permaculture Design Course will be held at the site of the Panya Project. The course will consist of a broad range of topics applicable to life anywhere on this planet, yet will be tailored to the needs of the students present as well as the location at hand. Participants will help to co-create the design of tropical food forests, permaculture-style gardens, natural buildings, water catchment and irrigation systems, work with swales and dams, as well as actively implement tropical food forest on the hosting land. The course will be conducted in two parts; the first two weeks will be the 72 hours of course work required to receive a Permaculture Design Certificate. All students are required to be present for the first two weeks if they wish to receive the certificate. The following week will be a one week hands-on training course, focused primarily on food forests and fruit tree planting guilds. This is the first course that the community members of the Panya Project will teach themselves. We are excited about being self-sufficient in one more way. The hope for this course is that it can be attended by folks who ordinarily wouldn’t be able to afford a course. We have reduced our prices by US$250, and offered an extremely low fee for people working with NGO’s. We appreciate what you do, and this is just one way we might thank you. We are looking forward to expanding our own knowledge and depth of permaculture, creating an amazing example of it ourselves, and sharing the bounty with the global sustainability community and beyond! Read more about it at: Music, yoga, meditation, gardening, great food, laughter, poetry readings, fresh fruit, dancing, and more are part of our regular routine at Panya. Come to enjoy yourself, come to learn, come to build your health, and come to see another way to be! |
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