My friend growing culinary herbs in her garden
1st project: Urban Agriculture in Damascus
My work on urban agriculture started in May 2011. Early beginnings were documented in my second OP under the current diploma program. Most of the work that I carried out between then and now was for improving my own knowledge on plant types, needs, and how to take care of them.
During the NGO training programme I discussed this idea with a group of activist and it quickly caught fire. We held few meetings discussing turning this idea into an initiative that we can start with limited funding and take it further for up-scaling. The initiative is about providing training on urban agriculture together with home-based composting techniques in order to create closed loops for food production at home level.
Our hosting organization, UNDP, also became interested in the idea and asked me to write a brief concept note, and if it meets their criteria they would fund it as a one of their projects.
My urban agriculture project for GU will include the following:
- Documenting developments of planting work in my house
- Highlights of similar experiments being done in my surrounding
- Update on the urban agriculture training to be organized
- Update on t he developments with planning for a bigger project
2nd project: PDC in Damascus
In May 2013, geofflawton.com has launched an Online Permaculture Design Certificate Course and offered Group Scholarship to many countries including Syria. The course DVDs were mailed to Syria in mid Nov however lost in the mail system and were not delivered. Another shipment was placed in early February and should arrive by mid or end of March. I have already contacted people with potential interest to attend the PDC. Organizing this training on the other hand requires approvals and other complicated procedures therefore it’s better to be organized by an NGO, for this I have few good candidates.
2nd project alternative: garden design
In case the PDC project was not possible, I intend to work on a garden design. This project will be based on the UA training that will be offered earlier, where I expect to connect with experts and garden-owners. The main aim of this project would be developing permaculture demonstration site(s) in urban areas like the suburb I live in. this suburb has been relatively calm during the war, it has big gardens and public areas, the people who live here are mostly of middle class. I have already located 3 people who are interested in turning their gardens into demonstration sites, however producing a valid design requires support from experts. My role would be introducing permaculture as the framework for them to put their knowledge in.
3rd project: Completing the compost research project
So far I have finished 2 chapters of this research paper including:
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Composting fundamentals
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Composting approaches and techniques
A 3rd chapter entitled methods used for mainstreaming small-scale composting is 50% complete.
Other products to be produced under this project include:
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Complete research paper
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Training module to be offered during the UA workshop
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Online article
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manual for small-scale composting
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Documentation of local experiments and results
OP plan
Output packet plan and expected time of submission:
- OP1-LIPD II: March 1st 2014
- OP2-UA project: May 1st 2014
- Programme pause: May-July. During this period I expect to have a lot of work pressure, time constrains during the month of Ramadan and the Eid that follows, and would need to concentrate on other issues on my year plan. I will continue during this time to document my project activities and would hopefully compile enough mateirl to fill the coming OPs.
- OP3: PDC or garden design: August 1st 2014
- OP4: compost research: October 1st 2014
- OP5: year assessment: December 1st 2014