The purpose of this project is to bring awareness and knowledge to themes such as permaculture and ecology with hands-on practice and understanding. Students have been physically involved and have benefited from a pleasant and healthy educational space.
Local
Romania
Galati county, Beresti
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-11-30
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): ASOCIATIA BEEHAVE Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Andreea Last name of representative: Giurgiu Gender: Female Nationality: Romania Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Fagetului 144 Town: Constanta Postal code: 900654 Country: Romania Direct Tel:+40 736 170 360 E-mail:andreeamariagiurgiu93@gmail.com Website:https://www.beehave.org/
The activities during Permablitz in Berești aimed to reconnect the students and teachers at "Paul Bujor" Technological High-school to a fun and effective way of growing your own food.
The purpose was to bring awareness and knowledge on themes such as permaculture and ecology with hands-on practice and understanding.
Everybody's efforts resulted in a food forest planted in the school's garden, and 20 perspective-changing educational activities for the students on permaculture and ecology.
During the development of the project, students were physically involved and benefited from a pleasant and healthy educational space.
permaculture
durability
resilience
biodiversity
education
Permaculture teaches us how to live in harmony with nature, build community, and become resilient in the face of climate change. We believe that it's important to reconnect with this knowledge and share it among ourselves.
The main purpose of the project was to provide relevant and interesting information on permaculture and ecology through interactive workshops and hands-on practice. On the subject of sustainability, we aimed to create a circular economy mindset, which encouraged the beneficiaries to learn how to provide as much as they could for themselves and assure the continuous development of their food forest garden.
The composting bin was an instrument for creating a continuous natural fertilizer from food and garden scraps, replenishing the soil with the much-needed nutrients. At the "Paul Bujor" High School, the students are now able to compost their vegetable scraps and create their own compost to use in the garden, while observing the fascinating composting process.
Our permaculture designer carefully selected the plants for the garden, taking into consideration multiple factors such as site position and exposure, wind direction, hardiness area, microclimates, and climate data, in order to create a space that fulfills the needs of students and nature alike. By using permaculture techniques, we created a biodiversity hub for the local fauna and a pleasant, recreational space for students.
Resilience was a big part of our vision, therefore, through our practices, we aimed to provide the best opportunity for the newly planted food forest to thrive. Using companion planting (the science of allelopathy), we ensured functions such as passive nitrogen fixation, weed suppression, and repellency of pests in the garden.
We also added organic fertilizers and important fungi, such as vermicompost and mycorrhizae in order to aid in plant connectivity and resilience.
Because the age range of the students at this public institution ranges from primary school to high school, we wanted to provide a creative environment that could stimulate their imagination.
The purpose of this project was to create an engaging and mentally stimulating green space to be enjoyed as both a recreation space and an alternate outdoor learning setting.
The structure that really pulls together and connects the garden area is the vegetation tunnel; it connects the sitting-covered pergola with the berry maze. Together they enhance the garden’s beauty by balancing the landscape of the garden.
Another part of the sustainability of the project lies in the fact that this landscape is a productive one, which will provide different types of fruits and nuts in the following years and decades. By using companion planting the kids have the opportunity to learn about allelopathy (plant compatibility) and even watch the impact of this design in the future, as the garden develops and grows.
The aesthetics aspect of this project was very important, as we wanted to increase the engagement of the kids with the garden.
Even though small, we wanted to maximize the benefits this garden had to offer. The vegetation tunnel doesn’t only engage the creative mind, it also enables vining plants to grow vertically in order to maximize the utilization of the space.
The berry maze has been a particular favorite of the children, they were so very excited that the shrubs provided them with some fruits only a couple of months after the planting event.
Our intent when starting this project was to reach students that had a high chance of working in agriculture in the future (agriculture was one of the specialties at this high school). Mainly because kids in the rural area are less likely than those in the city to become open to alternative practices later on in life due to cultural bias. We wanted to provide a physical example and methods and strategies for sustainable models of growing food because nothing sways opinion more than actual, physical results.
The affordability aspect was also raised as sustainable practices that involve no artificial chemicals are more affordable (and healthy), so the overall cost is reduced long-term.
The Beresti high school management has been involved from the start, they provided us with permission to design and landscape their available green space and are responsible for the long-term maintenance of the garden. In addition to this, they were also responsible for disseminating the visual information to the students through the visual presentation our association provided them with.
The older students actively took part in the hands-on landscaping activities, from start to finish.
The families of the students and local community also were involved as they had contributed with some equipment like shovels and wheelbarrows temporarily in the few days that we did the planting of the garden.
The mayor and some of the workers from the city hall were also involved in the cutting of grass and manning the bulldozer used in the demo stage. The mayor also disseminated his experience in the garden’s landscaping on social media during and after the planting event.
The main funding for this project came through the “Spații verzi Program” ("The Green spaces Program") from Fundația pentru parteneriat (The Partnership Foundation), and MOL.
One of our partners and also the beneficiary, the high school in Beresti, Galati county, were involved from the beginning and contributed significantly.
They helped with the educational activities, by disseminating the information on permaculture and ecology we sent them, as well as through logistics activities like receiving and depositing all the materials and equipment needed when delivered at their location before all the planting activities.
Our main partner Global Water Partnership Romania acted as a mentor and kindly guided us throughout the whole project. They contributed to this project with part of the necessary funds and provided us with their counsel every step of the way.
They also helped us with feedback during the writing of the application, upon receiving the funding they purchased all the necessary materials and equipment and maintained communication with the funds allocator as well as guided us through the reporting stage.
The mayor also provided a bulldozer and workers who helped remove some fencing as well as cut the grass of the landscaping activities at the beginning stages.
The Beehave team was responsible for the creation of the design, the creation of educational materials to be disseminated to the students, the coordination of the volunteers, the research and the purchasing decisions for this project, and other management and promotion-related activities.
The educational materials disseminated to the students covered a multitude of subjects, mainly information on ecology and permaculture but also some notions of hydrology, geography, and other natural science.
The permaculture design implemented at Beresti high school was also the result of many natural sciences, as one of the Beehave team members has completed a (BS) Geography and (MS) Ecology and has obtained her PRO PDC (Professional Permaculture Design Course) from Oregon State University. She is the one that formulated the design and acted as coordinator for the planting activities.
The mayor and the workers he brought were well-versed in demolition so they took over these activities at the very beginning of the landscaping process.
The teachers at the Beresti high school lead the educational activities with the materials provided by the Beehave team, as this is their specialty.
The aim and objectives of the project have been achieved. Through this project, we managed to offer the students of Berestii Technical High School a pleasant educational space, with qualitative, clean green spaces, a healthy and interactive environment for the development of botanical knowledge, related to permaculture and resilient food growing systems.
Objectives achieved:
Learning and putting into practice some notions of permaculture and ecology through educational workshops and planting approx. 200 trees and shrubs (precisely 138 trees and shrubs in the first spring planting and 163 trees and shrubs in the 2nd autumn planting), and dozens (40) types of companion plants (herbaceous, cover crops, medicinal plants, and flowers) in the yard of the Technological High School " Paul Bujor" from Berești.
There were a total of 4 different workshops on gardening and permaculture including compost making with 100 children involved, as direct beneficiaries. The total surface of the garden was 800 sq meters and the total number of trees or shrubs planted was 301.
The indirect beneficiaries would be all of the children at Beresti high school and their families.
Empowering students through opportunities for decision-making and critical thinking to create tree guilds from the selection of companion plants provided in the garden.
Building an oasis of peace and relaxation during class breaks by setting up green space that can be used for recreational and educational activities.
The innovative character of our project would be the “novelty” of the information, or rather the fact that permaculture hasn’t been popularized at a social level with the average citizen. Though the methods and strategies and the coined term are as old as more than 5 decades now.
The idea of sustainable food growing systems isn’t new by any means, there is recent proof that the amazonian rainforest is actually a man-made food forest as lost, never before seen cities are discovered and the area surrounding these cities are denser in fruit trees than the regions that are further away.
As organic food production is becoming increasingly popular with the average consumer, naturally, we also see an overall rise in knowledge relating to good practices in food production.
Our collaboration with the partners began by educating them on the subject of permaculture a while before this project took place, we had been in contact and collaborated previously in different events with GWP Romania by the time we saw the call for this funding. Because they were in close contact with the high school in Beresti, they suggested a collaboration and that is how this project got started.
Before we applied for the funding we took the time to fully explain what our idea was all about and our reasons behind it, the potential impact, and the results to the leadership of the highschool.
After the partnership was formalized and we got the funding, the permaculture design was finalized, the necessary materials and equipment were purchased and the calendar with the activities was laid out. The educational materials were also made and disseminated by the high school prior to the planting event.
There was also a social media and PR strategy put in place, we started promoting the project immediately after the results were announced.
We then publicly disseminate materials (photos and videos) at every stage of the process by creating an awareness campaign regarding permaculture in order to encourage the public to look into forest gardens and permaculture in general.
Most of the landscaping and planting activities took place in the spring of 2022, specifically in the first days of May as the calendar for this funding opportunity was only about 6 months (May-October). The steps and activities were described in detail and shared with all involved parties in a timely manner.
The requirements for the maintenance of the garden were detailed and shared with the management of the high school ahead of time and progress photo and video materials were disseminated online on all the partners’ social media.
Because a permaculture design is always done depending on local site conditions (climate/soil/terrain/slope/microclimates etc) and there will never be truly identical conditions, each design is singular. We believe this is in fact the main charm of permaculture and a huge opportunity for anyone looking to delve into this science as each design is unique and a joy to come up with, after a detailed inspection of the site.
The best part is that any site management can include methods and strategies found in permaculture, regardless of its geographical position.
A few months after this project was completed we actually got a call from another neighboring school in the region asking if we could collaborate to make a permaculture design for them as well. One of the teachers there saw the Beresti garden in the summer and brought it up with the management at their local school.
There seems to be a growing interest in the subject of permaculture, even at just first glance.
Global biodiversity loss has reached an all-time high: of 69%. Half of all ice-free terrain on planet Earth is agriculturally exploited through unsustainable means and is the leading cause of these extinctions. The consequences of these practices range from soil erosion and depletion, and contamination of freshwater supplies to habitat extinction just to name a few.
These practices of obtaining yield are not congruent with a sustainable future for mankind.
We need to completely transform the extractive practices and focus on restoring soil health and reestablishing the natural water cycle.
We can take steps to prevent further soil loss now, by using cover cropping from fall until spring for grain production or using companion planting in orchards, or, even better, replacing monoculture orchards with multi-species food forests.
We need to equip regular people with the knowledge necessary to survive the already present food crisis.
Subsistence gardens are a must for every citizen as the chain of supply is simply not resilient enough to ensure a constant and reliable food supply for every human on earth.
