The people with the problem are the people with the solution
Never Ending Food
São um casal que vive no Malawi, África e que está a tentar implementar os princípios de permacultura: "a cultura permanente de recursos". Foi interessante encontrar pessoas dedicadas a este conceito em África, quando pelos países desenvolvidos ainda há tanto a fazer.
Faz todo o sentido porque é nesses países que o desenvolvimento e a exploração de recursos está a crescer de uma forma insustentável. Estão a fazer-se autênticos crimes ao nível dos recursos biológicos, havendo uma exploração sem limites e muitas vezes com o consentimento e comparticipação de países desenvolvidos, como é o caso da UE. Isto já para não falar dos recursos não biológicos como é o caso do petróleo e dos diamantes que servem para alimentar todos o tipo de conflitos que acontecem nesses países.
Ao nível dos recursos marinhos é impressionante o cinismo da UE quando negoceia quotas de exploração de pesca de toneladas de peixe em águas de países como a Mauritânia e o Senegal. São quotas de quantidade, sem o mínimo de preocupação ao nível dos stocks existentes, de tamanhos e da gestão dos recursos marinhos desses países. E são pescas feitas em grandes barcos, sem regras nem controlo do impacto. E a maior ironia disto tudo é a quantidade de peixe que se retira destes países quando há pessoas a morrer à fome.
Mas voltando ao Malawi foi para mim interessante também perceber o caminho que levaram estas pessoas até à sustentabilidade. Eram voluntários para trabalhar na prevenção de doenças que afectam com elevada frequência as populações africanas. Mas depois de lá estarem perceberam que estavam a prevenir doentes com sistema imunitário fraco, que isso era devido à falta de alimento e que seria mais eficaz ajudar a resolver o problema de raiz: mais do que medicamentos aquelas pessoas precisam de alimentos. E para produzir alimentos é preciso promover as condições para que essa produção seja feita e mantida.
This is our website dedicated to Permaculture and nutrition in Malawi, Africa. The sustainable ideas for living that are embodied in Permaculture are universal, which means that they can work anywhere in the world. The plants may change, but the ideas will remain the same. We hope that by highlighting some of the exciting things that are happening here in Malawi, you may also be able to learn and apply some of these things wherever you may happen to find yourself.
To begin, let us give you a little history of who we are and how we ended up in Malawi: In April of 1997, Stacia and Kristof Nordin were sent to do HIV/AIDS prevention work in Malawi, Africa through the U.S. Peace Corps. Stacia is a Registered Dietitian, and Kristof is a Social Worker by training. As we began our work, we quickly learned that in order to be successful, we would have to view the idea of “prevention” in an entirely different context from that of which we knew.
In industrialized countries, we often take longevity and health for granted. When something opposes this notion, it is easy to feel threatened. In a country like Malawi, however, concepts like these are not a given. Death is as much a part of daily life as is birth. Villagers are barraged by continual threats to their existence: Cerebral Malaria, Cholera, Tuberculosis, malnutrition, floods and droughts. In the eyes of the village, AIDS is another disease to add to this list. The sense of urgency that we expected to find in a country that is one of the hardest hit in the world by this epidemic is minimal, even at the national level.
The conclusion that Stacia and I came to was that we couldn’t treat the AIDS issue as a separate entity. It had to be seen in the way that the village sees it–as part of a whole. We couldn’t address a disease that attacks the immune system without addressing the fact that immune systems were already compromised by malnutrition. We couldn’t work on improving nutrition without working to improve the diversity of what was being grown. We couldn’t improve the diversity of agricultural crops without working to improve soil fertility, and on and on….We began to see a natural connection between problems and solutions.
That’s when we were introduced to Permaculture. A philosophy that seemed to encompass what we were looking for. Permaculture is actually an agricultural-based school of thought, that is rooted in the fact that no single problem or solution stands on its own. In recognition of this balance, Permaculture is comprised of four basic principles:
1) Working with nature rather than against it.
2) Thoughtful observation rather than thoughtless labor
3) Each element should perform many functions, rather than one.
4) Everything is connected to everything else.
The Permaculture approach has been ideal for implementation at the community level, because it uses all existing resources. It is also ideal for implementation at the Government and Policy level because there’s no need for external funding or donations. Our developmental philosophy can be summed up by the quote, “The people with the problem are the people with the solution.” (source unknown). All solutions come from the people themselves, which helps to provide the self-confidence and ownership that it will take to address future problems in a sustainable way. To quote from Malawi’s Permaculture Newsletter, “Designing systems for sustainable living so that whatever we do in our life, how we live, how we grow our food, should be done in a sustainable way, that is what PERMACULTURE is all about.”
São um casal que vive no Malawi, África e que está a tentar implementar os princípios de permacultura: "a cultura permanente de recursos". Foi interessante encontrar pessoas dedicadas a este conceito em África, quando pelos países desenvolvidos ainda há tanto a fazer.
Faz todo o sentido porque é nesses países que o desenvolvimento e a exploração de recursos está a crescer de uma forma insustentável. Estão a fazer-se autênticos crimes ao nível dos recursos biológicos, havendo uma exploração sem limites e muitas vezes com o consentimento e comparticipação de países desenvolvidos, como é o caso da UE. Isto já para não falar dos recursos não biológicos como é o caso do petróleo e dos diamantes que servem para alimentar todos o tipo de conflitos que acontecem nesses países.
Ao nível dos recursos marinhos é impressionante o cinismo da UE quando negoceia quotas de exploração de pesca de toneladas de peixe em águas de países como a Mauritânia e o Senegal. São quotas de quantidade, sem o mínimo de preocupação ao nível dos stocks existentes, de tamanhos e da gestão dos recursos marinhos desses países. E são pescas feitas em grandes barcos, sem regras nem controlo do impacto. E a maior ironia disto tudo é a quantidade de peixe que se retira destes países quando há pessoas a morrer à fome.
Mas voltando ao Malawi foi para mim interessante também perceber o caminho que levaram estas pessoas até à sustentabilidade. Eram voluntários para trabalhar na prevenção de doenças que afectam com elevada frequência as populações africanas. Mas depois de lá estarem perceberam que estavam a prevenir doentes com sistema imunitário fraco, que isso era devido à falta de alimento e que seria mais eficaz ajudar a resolver o problema de raiz: mais do que medicamentos aquelas pessoas precisam de alimentos. E para produzir alimentos é preciso promover as condições para que essa produção seja feita e mantida.
This is our website dedicated to Permaculture and nutrition in Malawi, Africa. The sustainable ideas for living that are embodied in Permaculture are universal, which means that they can work anywhere in the world. The plants may change, but the ideas will remain the same. We hope that by highlighting some of the exciting things that are happening here in Malawi, you may also be able to learn and apply some of these things wherever you may happen to find yourself.
To begin, let us give you a little history of who we are and how we ended up in Malawi: In April of 1997, Stacia and Kristof Nordin were sent to do HIV/AIDS prevention work in Malawi, Africa through the U.S. Peace Corps. Stacia is a Registered Dietitian, and Kristof is a Social Worker by training. As we began our work, we quickly learned that in order to be successful, we would have to view the idea of “prevention” in an entirely different context from that of which we knew.
In industrialized countries, we often take longevity and health for granted. When something opposes this notion, it is easy to feel threatened. In a country like Malawi, however, concepts like these are not a given. Death is as much a part of daily life as is birth. Villagers are barraged by continual threats to their existence: Cerebral Malaria, Cholera, Tuberculosis, malnutrition, floods and droughts. In the eyes of the village, AIDS is another disease to add to this list. The sense of urgency that we expected to find in a country that is one of the hardest hit in the world by this epidemic is minimal, even at the national level.
The conclusion that Stacia and I came to was that we couldn’t treat the AIDS issue as a separate entity. It had to be seen in the way that the village sees it–as part of a whole. We couldn’t address a disease that attacks the immune system without addressing the fact that immune systems were already compromised by malnutrition. We couldn’t work on improving nutrition without working to improve the diversity of what was being grown. We couldn’t improve the diversity of agricultural crops without working to improve soil fertility, and on and on….We began to see a natural connection between problems and solutions.
That’s when we were introduced to Permaculture. A philosophy that seemed to encompass what we were looking for. Permaculture is actually an agricultural-based school of thought, that is rooted in the fact that no single problem or solution stands on its own. In recognition of this balance, Permaculture is comprised of four basic principles:
1) Working with nature rather than against it.
2) Thoughtful observation rather than thoughtless labor
3) Each element should perform many functions, rather than one.
4) Everything is connected to everything else.
The Permaculture approach has been ideal for implementation at the community level, because it uses all existing resources. It is also ideal for implementation at the Government and Policy level because there’s no need for external funding or donations. Our developmental philosophy can be summed up by the quote, “The people with the problem are the people with the solution.” (source unknown). All solutions come from the people themselves, which helps to provide the self-confidence and ownership that it will take to address future problems in a sustainable way. To quote from Malawi’s Permaculture Newsletter, “Designing systems for sustainable living so that whatever we do in our life, how we live, how we grow our food, should be done in a sustainable way, that is what PERMACULTURE is all about.”