NEXT PDC INTERNSHIP DATES FOR 2024
1st of April until 1st of July 2024
2024 Three month PDC Internship specialising in ´´food foresting through the lens of Regenerative agroforestry and Syntropic agriculture´´.
HAVE A LOOK AT SOME GALLERIES OF OUR PERMACULTURE COURSES
HERE, HERE and HERE
Intro
We are very happy to announce that the next Internship will be starting in April 2024.
We are looking for passionate and hard-working individuals who have a deep hunger to learn. We want people who are ready to develop a detailed understanding of applied Permaculture and food-forests.
The internship will be for three months, and we would like Interns to commit to staying for the entire three months.
The programme will consist of a four day work week, involving two days of theory and two days of practical per week.
Half of the theory (one day per week) will be the 72 hour curriculum from the Permaculture Deisgn Certificate course.
The other half of the theory (one day per week) will be an introduction into ´´Regenerative Agroforestry Systems and Syntropic Agriculture. ´´
DATES and Itinerary
Starts from the 1st of April 2024 for three months until July the 1st 2024
a normal week will look like this
Day 1: theory in the classroom
Day 2: theory in the classroom
Day 3: practical hands-on work at the forest garden (which includes a meal from the garden each day.)
Day 4: practical hands-on work at the forest garden (which includes a meal from the garden each day.)
Day 5: free time
Day 6: free time
Day 7: free time
The two days of practical will involve:-
- maintaining vegetable production, including preparing new beds, planting, weeding, harvesting, mulching, chop and drop, watering etc
- implementing new forest gardens
- harvesting and post production.
More info and conditions
We aim to offer an experience that gives both the theoretical and practical aspects needed for interns to have the confidence to implement it themselves.
-Interns need to find their own accommodation. but we can help with the process of finding something suitable! Apart from the two shared meals from the garden each week , interns will also need to provide their own food.
-Interns will receive a PDC certificate at the end of the internship.
-The forest garden, our local town and the classroom are within reach by cycling, walking or driving.
-We can confirm that the internship is going ahead as we already have enough bookings, but there are not many places available , so please get in touch if you are interested in a placement.
-We cannot offer non Eu residents support in getting Visas beyond three months. but please get in touch as we may be able to find another way to make it work!
– All ages are welcome (18plus).
-There will be three days off per week. but we encourage the interns to use our directory of other teachers and projects in the area to utilise one of their days off for learning about other topics such as herbalism, eco-construction, midwifery, sustainable technology. The area also offers many experiences in the Sierra Nevada mountains or on the coast in terms of hiking , climbing skiing, swimming, surfing etc.
The cost of the internship
We offer a sliding scale to make sure that the internship is available to as many people as possible. There will be three options for the price , but if you cannot afford any of the options, then please get in touch with us and we can let you know if any scholarships are available. Please pay the right amount according to your own unique financial situation. The more that you can afford to pay, the more we can let Interns come who have a difficult financial situation. We would also love to offer Scholarships for students who are in particular need.
1000 euros -absolute minimum
1500 euros -medium scale
2000 euros -higher
other costs , Interns will need to provide their own work clothes, boots, gloves and a simple tool such as secateurs,
a bicycle is also recommended, but not needed.
Teachers
The main teacher is Ras John Cresswell, a certified educator working with the ”Permaculture Association UK”. The two days of theory will also include some visits from locally based specialists. The core curriculum will include: permaculture, seed saving, reforestation, regenerative agroforestry, food-production, and building strong business models. Many other topics will be covered, a small sample of which are: composting, micro-organisms, bee keeping, finance, and community based problem-solving. For a full list of the 5 month curriculum and the teachers involved, please send us an email to granadapermacultura@yahoo.com
Guest teachers:
– Cathy Whitefield: has had great experience facilitating and teaching Permaculture courses for many years in the UK, with her partner and famous U.K. permaculture godfather, Patrick Whitefield, one of Ras John Cresswells Mentors. Cathy will be responsible for teaching ‘People care’ , ‘ Community problem solving’ , ‘Non-violent communication’, ‘Listening to the land’ and she will also be helping with facilitation and support for the course itself.
– Andy Freeman talking about ‘Animals role in Permaculture’.
– Carol Freeman from seeed.es making workshops about seed-saving.
–Sophie Paulding doing a herb workshop, finding , identifying and preparing wild herbs.
LOCATION
The internship programme is based on a beautiful organic farm located by a riverside, in Las Aplujarras on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Granada Province, Spain. The farm is owned by one of our previous students.
CERTIFICATION
You do not need to have any previous qualifications or experience to take part in the internship. If you have not already done your PDC (Permaculture Designer’s Course certificate) then you will be awarded with one at the end of the five months. If you already have your PDC certificate, then you can put your three months internship towards your two-year Permaculture Diploma.
BACKGROUND
In Permaculture one of the greatest ways of learning is through experience and making lots of small mistakes. Over the last 22 years we have welcomed and trained hundreds of volunteers, but have noticed that we are not part of their learning experience long enough to help them learn through trial and error. The majority stay for 1-3 weeks, learn the basics of farming and permaculture, and move on.
We have also taught over 60 Permaculture Design courses. Feedback from these courses are always positive, but many report that it is often quite difficult to put what they’ve learned into practice.
This internship aims to address both of these issues, and bridge the gaps in Permaculture tuition. We aim to offer a space where people can learn what they need to learn, have the space to experience the practicalities and challenges of what they are learning, and then apply what they have learned from those experiences.
We realised that we must create a system where everyone can be involved and prosper in an interconnected permaculture family, where we can inspire long-term relationships.
LANGUAGE
The entire internship will be taught in English (but we hope to offer the same program in Castellano in the years to come). You do not need to know Spanish to be a part of the course, but some basic knowledge will surely help you in your stay here.
THE LOCAL AREA
The local area is of magnificent natural beauty, including our local national park and the tallest mountains in mainland Spain: the Sierra Nevada. We will be visiting and working on projects in the high mountains which have a climate very similar to northern Europe, where they grow walnuts, kiwis, apples, cherries, chestnuts, mulberries, pears and persimmons. With only forty five minutes drive to the sub-tropical coast line, we will also be visiting and working on projects growing mangoes, bananas, pineapples, custard apples, litchis, zapotes, avocados, papaya, and many more. Therefor it’s possible to learn about a wide range of micro-climates within a very small area. Surfing and snowboarding can also be enjoyed an hour in either direction.
The nearest local town to the internship is about a twenty minute walk, which has access to the local bus network with connections to the local alternative town of Orgiva and further afield to the majestic city of Granada. Orgiva is proud to host seventy nationalities within its municipality and has a great selection of organic shops, cultural activities and a thriving market.
As a group of farmers, we have been experimenting with Permaculture in the Mediterranean climate. After teaching over 60 courses in permaculture we feel that it is time to start teaching internships instead, that hopefully lead to students feeling like dedicated individuals, empowering our communities and supporting nature through understanding ecosystems. We stand for the indigenous and moving humans, plants, and animals of this planet. We stand for all the oppressed peoples and ecosystems. We stand for Woman, as much as we do Man. We hope to inspire and cultivate diversity, to achieve balance and stability.
Once this internship has been completed you will receive a PDC certificate (from the Permaculture Association UK) and you will be able to put these ideas into practice, prove them through trial and error, and hopefully reach success.
After at least a few years of practicing Permaculture in your own way, you can then apply for your Diploma in Permaculture, do more advanced courses, or learn how to become a Consultant, or even a Teacher.
Many professions are compatible with permaculture principles and design techniques, so you could inspire change, save energy and share abundance through whatever it is that you do.
Hopefully through one of our courses you’ll be able to see Permaculture becoming alive and breathing, and it will inspire you to create your own such projects, now and in the future. By directly experiencing the development and support of eco-systems that can work hand in hand with human life, one can begin to understand the ‘research and development’ that is needed as part of the process. We can realise the great wisdom written within the designs of Nature and be inspired also by the ancient traditions of living in unity with our home and planet.
In the last few weeks of the course the participants work together in groups to create a mulit-layered design for a piece of land. We will visit a local farm as an example to use for the design.
Come and truly EXPERIENCE Permaculture. Smell the odours! Feel the textures! Taste the flavours! See the sights and inspire your inspiration! Documentaries, books and highly theoretical courses do not quite give permaculture the justice it deserves.
REQUIREMENTS AND CONDITIONS
We are looking for students at a minimum age of eighteen, but there is no maximum age. But we do expect people to be fit and ‘able-bodied’, to be able to deal with mountain life and the practical work that will be taking place.
The sooner you apply, the greater your chances are of getting a place!
We require a €200 deposit (refundable) to secure your place, and payment of the remaining five months fee on arrival.
The fee is non-refundable, as we need people to commit for the full three month program. (The payment will be refunded in full if the internship is cancelled for any reason, or fully booked at the time of your booking.)
CONTACT
Please write granadapermacultura@yahoo.com for more information, for further instructions, or to arrange a meeting through phone or videocall
for more info on Ras John Cresswell please go to…
Course Fees – How much does it cost?
For more information please click here