INTRODUCTION: Permaculture Workshops 9The key steps to designing an effective Permaculture workshop:
- Field research and community consultation before the course.
- Prioritize the course modules based on research results.
- Choose the most applicable theme and exercises for the course.
- Planning field practice that best illustrates the subject matter.
- Creating a detailed lesson plan.
- Developing and socializing the course outline.
- Preparing the resources needed to run the course.
- Facilitating the course.
- Providing post-course follow-up.
Step 1. Field research and community consultation before the course
An effective Permaculture workshop will be one that suits the needs of your course
participants and brings practical, tangible results. Because of this, it is very important to
meet the participants and find out what they need before you design the course, so as
to make it as interesting and as applicable as possible for them.
Involve the participants in the planning process.
You can gather information through initial and follow-up
meetings with local contact people and community leaders
and through observation on field visits to the village where
the course will be held. You can also organize small group
discussions with prospective participants.Making contact
The choice of participants and the area they come from may already have been decided,
depending on your organization and its projects. If you are not from the village or area
where the course will be held, a contact person or group of contact people can help set
up meetings and liaise between you and the community. This will help to achieve a more
successful implementation of the course.
If you use local liaisons, allocate at least 1 day to introduce the concept of the
Permaculture workshop to them beforehand.