surpluspermaculturedesignWeekend Permaculture Design Certification 72 hour Course – Spring 2015
February 14,15 – April 11, 12
Charleston, SC
Join us for the first ever Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) workshop to be held in Charleston, SC!
Are you looking for a creative, empowering way to enhance your life, and truly live the life you want to live? Permaculture is a design system that reconciles human communities with the ecological imperatives of a living planet. Permaculture design may be used to restore ecosystems, create sustainable farms and homes, as well as promote local economic systems and collaborative community. Permaculture is a way of organizing knowledge, a connecting system that integrates science, art, politics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the diverse experiences and resources available in any community.
This course is structured on alternating weekends to allow full time workers, students, and people with families the ability to attend.
The course will consist of a broad range of topics applicable to life anywhere on this planet, yet will be tailored to the needs of the students present as well as the location at hand. As part of the course, participants will help to co-create designs for real world projects that include elements such as food forests, permaculture-style gardens, natural building, water catchment, earthworks and irrigation systems.
The course will be conducted in the internationally accepted manner, but will go far beyond the scope of many PDC’s. The 72 hours of course work required to receive a Permaculture Design Certificate, will be covered over six weekend sessions, mixing hands-on activities, group work and walk-and-talks with plenty of in classroom studies, covering all major topics of Bill Mollison’s Permaculture: A Designers Manual. The extended nature of the weekend format will give participants time during the weeks to digest the enormous volume of material. All students are required to be present for all sessions if they wish to receive the certificate.
Our aim is to create a supportive learning community for the duration of the workshop, where trust, compassion, support and connection is built among participants.
The following topics will be discussed in class:
1. Philosophies and Ethics underlying Permaculture
2. Basic Permaculture principles
3. Patterns in Nature and how to use that in holistic design
4. Methods of design. How to apply permaculture design tools and strategies to your design problems. How to increase your chance on a successful design by following a well defined design methodology.
5. Climactic factors and strategies. We will cover all the major climates and how to work with them.
6. Trees, forests and Forest gardening. How to mimic natural forest systems to create an abundance of food, fiber and fodder.
7. Water: catchment, usage, importance, and conservation.
8. Soil structure, minerals, microorganisms, building new soil and preventing erosion. Learn to work with the soil food web to create a healthy ecosystem and regenerate degraded land.
9. Earthworks. How to shape the land to help it achieve the goals we are aiming for.
10. Aquaculture
11. Natural Building. How to build structures with materials available on-site.
12. Alternative systems. Community living and other ways of living differently that works well for people and the planet. Bioregional organization, community development, alternative economic systems, permaculture as aid.
Each of these categories has subcategories and each teacher also has their own additions and certain topics that are stressed over others
Dates:
February 14, 15 March 14, 15 April 4, 5
Feb 28, March1 March 28, 29 April 11, 12
*Each weekend will combine hands on sessions with classroom theory sessions*
**All sessions start at 9 am and run until 5 pm. Saturday and Sunday**
Location:
All sessions will be held in Charleston, SC but venue will depend on the activity at hand. Exact locations will be given upon registration and payment.
Lunch will be potluck style, so please bring something to share with the community.
” Whenever I remember moments, people, classes etc i can not stop marveling at how you organized and managed everything. To me it is the perfect example of a divine intervention, when one taps directly to the source …not to minimize at all your work, but it truly is beyond any human being to transmit what you did the way you did. Only divine intervention can make this possible “
-PDC student Margaux, 58 years old, interpreter for the UN and raw chef
Facilitator:
Nick Tittle grew up in Washington DC and attended the University of South Carolina where he received a bachelors degree in small business management and entrepreneurship. After school Nick traveled the world visiting farms and gaining valuable insight into indigenous agricultural practices before heading to South East Asia. He spent three years managing volunteers, interns and apprentices at the Panya Project Permaculture and Earthen Building Education Center. Nick specializes in consulting and teaching about a variety of subjects including natural building, organic gardening, forest gardening, soil food web technology, animal husbandry and alternative economic systems. Nick received his Teacher Training certification from John Champaign in 2010 and has consulted in Thailand, China, India, and the USA. He was a featured speaker at the 1st South East Asia Permaculture Convergence, presenting about rehabilitating a monoculture orchard into a perennial polyculture food forest. Nick additionally organized and facilitated the 1st Thailand Permaculture Convergence in 2013. Nick is currently based in Charleston, South Carolina where he is working on setting up an Urban Permaculture Education Center.
"I heard about PDC from a friend and then found out that it was offered in my neighborhood. I bought 2.5 acres in Italy and wanted to learn more about how to build a sustainable garden there. As I am a facilitator myself and have delivered a lot of training I tend to be a bit saturated and skeptical as a learner, but this course was pretty amazing. The design was great, the flow made sense, I was engaged the entire two weeks and Nick and Greg not only have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share, but they are also excellent facilitators, holding the space, exploring things from different perspectives and creating a safe learning environment. I left enriched and motivated to put what I learned into practice. Greg and Nick, thanks so much. You both are authentic fabulous facilitators and experts of permaculture."
Price:
Early Bird Discount: $675 – Pay Before January 1st 2015
Full Rate: $ 825 – Pay after January 1st 2015
Fundraise for Your Tuition:
If you are interested in a creative way to come up with funds to gift for this course, look into fundraising for it through WeTheTrees.com. It is a great way to reach out to your family and friends, let them know what you are up to and give them a easy way to contribute to your education. Don’t let a lack of resources stop you from obtaining this important information!
Click on the banner below to learn more:
How to Register:
REGISTER NOW! We expect this course to fill, so get your spot locked in. Community is very important to us, so class size will be limited.
Register your spot by Paying: https://charlestonpdc.eventbrite.com
Please send all inquires to : Surpluspermaculturedesign@gmail.com
Fair Share – People Care – Earth Care