Areas of interest & research

Since working at Earthwise (in Subiaco, Perth) I have been interested in sustainable food systems, permaculture design, sustainable technologies,urban agriculture, community development and related topics. Rather than getting into design I fell into the community education field, working on projects to promote sustainable behaviour through campaigns and social marketing. The purpose of this trip for me is to get back to hands on work that is practical and local, rather than top-down and remote.

If you are interested in finding out more about any of these areas, here are a few links to get you started; there really is a massive amount out there. I have downloaded about 3 phd's worth of reading material to take with me, plus stacks (like 30 gb worth) of useful articles that I can share with people over there on subjects from biogas to beekeeping, water filtration to wind power. This is of course in contradiction to the previous paragraph about being practical rather than theoretical - but most of it is reference!!

Permaculture: start with www.permaculture.org.au
Urban Agriculture: www.cityfarmer.org; www.ruaf.org; www.idrc.ca

Appropriate Technology: AT Library - http://www.villageearth.org/pages/AT_Library/ - over 1500 texts across a variety of topics (intro to Appropriate technology; water & santiation; agriculture; aquaculture; forestry; agricultural tools; crop storage & preservation; health; construction & building; education; energy creation; transport and more)

and 3rdWorldCD, which has 13 gb of useful info to download as a torrent - www.cd3wd.com/

Community development texts: www.idrc.ca - they have lots of ebooks on comm dev, evaluation, gender issues, economic development.

Stacks of useful stuff through the UN's FAO, i haven't even started on it yet.

There are also plenty of files, videos and audio through torrent sites, scribd, youtube and elsewhere.

Getting to Kufunda - what we've had to do

1. Decide that we are going to go 'somewhere' to work on a project where can get international development experience.
2. Identify what we both want to get out of it: what particular experience do we each want to learn?
3. Search for projects that will enable both of us to fulfil our goals. This involved internet searching, paying some agencies to find projects for us. This was helped by having some background knowledge of some projects through permaculture networks, but involved about 2 weeks work trawling through different options and a lot of bad information. There are an awful lot of projects that are set-up to fund themselves through paying volunteers rather than being a proper skillsharing opportunity. It is also difficult to understand what you will get out of the project in terms of experience, especially if you want it to be more than a holiday. We were really looking for something that will potentially lead-on or stand us in good stead for employment in the development sector, so our criteria were fairly strict.
   
4. Get in touch with shortlisted projects to find out more about them. Explain what we are looking for, the skills that we have and how long we are expecting to stay there for.
   
5. Refine list based on feedback, practicality, costs and other parameters; prioritize projects.
6. Contact the projects on the priority list; get accepted (hooray!).
   
   
7. Research the country in more depth, speak to the people from the project in more depth about what we need to bring, what we should bear in mind, what to expect.
8. Research and plan finances, logistics of travelling there, vaccinations, visas & documentation, travel insurance, safety considerations, what we need to bring with us.
   
9. Decide date for travel that fits in with the project.
   
10. Undertake neccessary logistics - book plane tickets, book in for vaccinations (cholera, rabies, hep B, hep A, typhoid, yellow fever, diphtheria, tetanus, TB, polio, meningitis), secure travel documents.
    
    
11. Begin packing up life in London - taking stuff to charity shops, selling stuff on ebay, moving out of the house, start saying goodbyes to people. Pack & repack, whittling things down.
    
12. Lots of things having to get done on final days, and not enough sleep. Just about got there - only need to get on the plane now!

Nearly there!

We are just about ready to go now. 5 days to go, and 5 days of restful easter holiday with half of London going away everywhere will be a bit more chilled out.
Finished up at Richmond today, one last meeting to get the cycle buddy scheme underway, it will be interesting to hear how that goes.

The last few little things need to be packed away or chucked out, or bought. I still need to sort out what we are doing about our bikes - the plan of taking them over there doesn't neccessarily seem the best idea anymore as insurance won't cover them, but it would be so good to have a reasonable steed out there. Something for the weekend i guess!

A few things to get finished: get travel insurance, sort out a few accounts & finances, pack the bag, sort out what to do with the bikes, post the ebay sales, take last few things to charity shop, buy a few little bits, catch up with people to say goodbyes.