Hi, I am new to the group. Just completed PDC in January with Bill & Geoff, and a group of fantastic people from different part of the world and Australia, it was a huge journey. Thanks Bill & Geoff it was a great honour to meet you both, and to everyone who was on the course. So, now back in my environment of ACT, am very motivated to make a difference in my immediate world. So have been off to a funding session today to put in an application for my children's school, for a kitchen garden using permaculture design & bio-dynamics. I know that Victoria have a program happening in Schools - Stephanie Alexander being involved and the school in Noosa. If anyone has information they would like to share with me about their experiences with school and government funding or putting in school/community garden I would greatly appreciate a chat. Bye for now Leanne [/img]
G'day Leanne, welcome to the forum and congrats on doing your PDC. It'd probably be well worth your while checking out what Josh Byrne (from Gardening Australia) has been up to over in WA too - he's been helping a school over there with both design and implementation. Community support plays a big part from what I understand; funding can get you part of the way, but in the end you need good solid community support to make it work long term. I'm looking to do a relatively similar school/community project soon and I'm sure others are too, so please call back in and give us the benefit of your experiences.
Leone Shanahan is our local school permie she works full time setting up schools around the sunshine coast.you can access her through https://www.permaculturenoosa.com.au/ or pm me for her phone number.
True Stories. In my experience working with school kids in gardens they seem to divide into two groups 1 The plant kids 2 The engineer kids. The Plant Kids are easy just grow anything that is vaguely useful or edible including tea herbs. For the Engineer kids you need an unlimited water supply, rocks shovels, pond liners etc etc They can then construct the Nile River Valley. I used to run such a class at a local private school (conscripted- important to have teacher involved for discipline, prior knowledge of kids and ice-blocks in hot weather). After class, Mothers learnt to bring large plastic garbage bags to wrap their children in before putting them in their pristine 4WD, SUVs and taking them home. One day the headmaster was giving some Japanese visitors a tour of the school. We were covered in mud , had a big boggy pond we were trying to construct and water and plants everywhere. I think the Japanese just thought it was too much "culture shock" "This is gardening???????????" A bit like Terry Pratchett's characters encountering DEATH they just 'did not compute', see, or know what was going on. I think my status with the headmaster went downhill after that. But I reckon I got several kid permanently hooked on gardening-which was the point of the exercise.
Michaelangelica, Love the observation: I had never considered it before. I have 3 boys -2plant kids and 1 engineer. cheers
Thank you for your reply. I would really like her number so that I can speak to her about her project in detail, especially budgeting. Leanne
Re: True Stories. Wow, thanks for the post. I think this is going to be a really important working with children and thinking about my own I have 3 engineers and no plant fellows. It's good to get a picture of the children really getting into the whole gardening experience, enjoying and having fun, because at the moment I am in my head trying to work out the whole project which has to be written down and accounted for which is very banal and necessary. So I will be head in paperwork and researching evidence and like projects to get this up and running. shall keep you posted Leanne
Jez, thanks for the post. Do you have more information on Josh Bryne perhaps a website other than the gardening australia site. I had a look around that and could not find the school information. Community is a big one, shall let you know how the funding goes...later on Leanne