Beneficial Relationships Created
As a result to the accumulative experiences collected through this learning cycle, one of the major outcomes achieved during the year 2017 was establishing beneficial relationships between entities and circles I am actively engaged in:
- Gaia University providing training to the Agriculture-livelihoods sub-programme that is being implemented by UNDP
This connection came through a tailored training programme offered by Andrew Langford from Gaia U to my colleague Ali and myself which contained orientation on sustainable agriculture practices for soil and water management that can be applied in the context of Syria, particularly orchard plains at the slopes of the anti-Lebanon mountains. The orientation revealed the potential of applying these techniques in addressing some of the most insisting issues that face farmers affected by the conflict.
Based on this training, Ali and I are currently planning to pilot these techniques in a rural area near Damascus named Zabadani, where we intend to disseminate the knowledge to local farmers who were heavily affected by the severe hostilities that took place there and led to widespread damage to the once-rich and fertile land. Furthermore, we’re planning to take another round of online training with Gaia U for developing the site design and exploring more techniques that can be applied to this specific area. Not only an important opportunity for building our own capacities, but also would create additional income for Gaia U. More>>
- Gaia U sponsorship to the coming PDC in Egypt
The second connection was having Gaia U to sponsor the PDC that will take place in Egypt this summer. In case I managed to take part in this course I will do brief orientation about Gaia U programmes and services hoping to bring more people from the Arab world into this life-changing learning experience.
Projects Postponed
PDC in Damascus / garden design
These two projects, organizing a PDC in Damascus and developing a permaculture design for a garden, turned out to be quite immature plans that I now see it as a clear example on may lack of clarity about the topography of the road ahead and therefore inability to clearly estimate distances. Here’s my thinking on this:
In the permaculture world, a PDC is considered a primary tool for spreading the knowledge on permaculture and attracting like-minded people to initiate action. But when it comes to introducing permaculture to this part of the world, there are many issues to be taken into consideration, mainly that the standard course design was made for totally different context and audience, therefore this tool needs to be totally redesigned in terms of content, layout, speakers, cost, audience, expectations and duration if we are to make a real impact. It might be beneficial to start the design process at meta-level to decide the most appropriate approach within the local context.
I had several discussions on this with my friends in Egypt who are planning for a PDC in late August 2018. As I may join this course as a participant and co-speaker, it will provide an important opportunity to further explore on this issue and collect feedback from the Egypt group especially in the light of progress and results achieved through their planned PDC.
My premature plan for garden design can be an example on unrealistic expectations that might be taken from PDC participation. At that time, I was under the impression that having taken the PDC with Geoff Lawton, I should be able to apply permaculture principles and develop a garden design regardless of the level of my experience on the ground which was close to zero, especially in terms of botanic knowledge and gardening work in general. My small urban gardening experiment allowed me to see the amount of learning that I need to take before I could introduce myself as a potential designer.
Skillflex Development
Skills gained/ improved throughout this learning cycle include:
Knowledge sharing
- Presentation skills: Clearly my OPs are becoming more visible, and the same goes for presentations, reports and documents produced both for Gaia U program and at work. Now that I became fully aware of the importance of visibility, and with the new opportunities that might be open for me for sharing knowledge, it becomes more urgent to add more tools or establish a partnership to support on this front.
- Writing skills: my writings started to capture and reflect more complexity by highlighting more details, relationships, metaphors. My English vocabulary needs lots of improvement through more quality reading.
Administration
- Project management: this area improved not only through the capstone projects but also because my job is mainly about managing small projects (with budget up to 150,000 $). I guess I have accumulated much experience in this field however I still need to improve my knowledge on various approaches to project management and how to link that to my work so that this work is put in more visible frameworks.
- Time management: needless to say, time was always my biggest challenge, and I had to manage in a way to make use of every available slot or create additional slots when needed. however, to improve time management I need to continue with improving my capacities on many front so that I can accomplish tasks with less time and accept new ones.
Agriculture
- Composting: very good level of theoretical knowledge after producing the detailed manual, in addition to doing modest experiments at home, though with no visible results.
- Urban gardening/ Botany: my modest experience with gardening was though very rich in lessons on plants, how to take care of them, and challenges that face urban gardeners including lack of space, lack of access to decent quality soil, and the challenge of allocating enough time and effort for this hobby as in my case.
Learning skills:
- According to Kolb model of experiential learning and the four learning styles it describes, the learning style I have so far been using is called Accommodating. “The Accommodating style’s dominant learning abilities are Concrete Experience (CE) and Active Experimentation (AE)”. Most of the experiences I collected during this learning cycle are more of practical and experimental nature, therefore it seems quite essential for me at this point to step more into reflective observation and abstract conceptualization. This will add more theory, depth, complexity and credibility to my work and will make easier to share knowledge and accept new knowledge as well. I will plan my coming OPs so that they’re richer with theory and more informative.
- The diploma program with Gaia U introduced some very useful tools, such as Kolb model of experiential learning and the Cyniffen model which I referred to in this OP, yet it seems to me that I have only touched the surface with using these tools and I still need to learn more in-depth to master them and be able to share. Actually, sharing this knowledge in a narrow circle sounds a good starter so this could be one of my coming plans.
Conclusion
Having walked a long mile now, I have tuned my plans to the following:
- Introducing permaculture to the Syrian context does not need to start from organizing a PDC. Instead it would be more beneficial to start with development of demonstration sites where permaculture solutions can be used to address some of the most insisting issues where traditional thinking proved to be less useful than ever, such as water shortage.
- To this end I need to align with people with sound technical expertise who can embrace this innovative approach in full.
- Once strong alliances are made, the next step would be piloting and establishment of demonstration sites.
And this is exactly where I am now: Strong alliances were built and pilots are just coming ahead.