In November and December 2004 Buddha Smiles hosted courses in natural building and Permaculture design at the Garden of Peace Primary School near Vellore.
Almost a year earlier Buddha Smiles held the first natural building workshop at the same site. It was amazing to see how much had been accomplished in that time. A year ago the site was just a bare field. Now the whole area was planted with crops of millet, lentils, ground nut, bananas and papaya. The school was now open with 25 happy students attending everyday.
The natural building workshop planned to build an Interfaith Meditation Hall. Participants came from Australia, Canada, the USA, Holland, Belgium and India. Work began with designing the building and digging the foundations. The work went well but when the time came to pour the concrete there were some problems coordinating with the local workers and work was stalled. As a result participants undertook some other small building projects.
There was also the chance to participate in some interesting local activities including a hair-cutting ceremony and a visit to a weaving village. I had visited the weaving village a year earlier and the people of the village were excited to see us return. The village has an after-school programme run by Buddha Smiles and it looks to be a continuing success.
Although the natural building workshop did not achieve its goal of building the meditation hall it was still successful in other ways. It established some strong foundations for the building and also continued to develop good relations with the local community.
After the natural building course the Permaculture design course began. We were fortunate to have Max Lindegger from EcoLogical Solutions in Australia join us. He has a wealth of experience and India was the 25th country that he had taught a Permaculture course in. Much of his teaching involved telling stories about designs he has seen or helped implement around the world. There is a saying in Permaculture that "the problem is the solution" and Max seems to have been finding a lot of solutions that are sustainable in the truest sense of the word.
One day of the course was a field trip where we visited a nearby organic farm and also went to Tiruvannamalai to visit the Permaculture farm. There were many good examples of Permaculture design there. It was hard to believe that what is now a productive farm with lots of tree cover was bare rocky fields 12 years ago. Seeing such a good example of the application of Permaculture was inspiring to everyone.
There was a lot of talk among the participants during the course about ways we could help the local people. The biggest issues that came up were deforestation and diet. There is a large brick making industry in the local area that uses a lot of wood to fire its kilns. This seems to be a principle cause of deforestation in the local area. The solutions are not simple, but Buddha Smiles is committed to doing some work in this area. By implementing Permaculture design at the school there will be many positive examples for local people about ways they can improve their lifestyle. One of these is growing a wider range of foods that will lead to improvement in their diet and nutrition.
After five weeks of building and permaculturing there were many new ideas about ways to continue the development of the school site. Already a lot has been achieved and it is now easy to see the many possibilities and benefits the project will bring as it comes to fruition. However, the best thing for me was seeing the smiling faces of the children as they came to school everyday.
by David Reid
article published in Seeds of Peace Vol. 21 No. 2 May-August 2005