Permaculture Design Certificate Course at Embun Pagi, Malaysia

Hi, I have two great news.

No. 1,
One of my teachers, Doug Crouch from the US is coming down to teach the Permaculture Design Certificate Course in Malaysia. He is coming with one of his colleagues, Kaila Binney who will also be teaching the course.

No. 2,
The 2 week Permaculture Design Certificate Course will be held at Embun Pagi, a permaculture demonstration site that I have been working on for the past 6 weeks.

Download the Permaculture Design Certificate brochure here
and Please visit http://embunpagi2009.wordpress.com/ for more details

I thought I knew you before I met you …

I thought I knew you before I met you …
America

Though we are far apart, I had you for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I thought I knew you before I met you …

Parts of you, America dripped nectar on my taste buds,
Tempting me with yearning for all things sweet.
Parts of you, America stung with the bitterness of bile,
Oozing trepidation for life, not mine, shoved into my throat.
Parts of you, America filled my bosom with the bread of contentment,
Baked from the yeast of indifference.
And parts of you America drained my heart with bottomless hunger,
Slithering in the stomachs of my ancestors.

Yet, America
There was much more to you than three meals a day,
For you are greater than the sum of your parts.

ii.
And now, alas, I am here in America …
I am thankful for having the privilege of getting to know you, America

As I lie on this meadow which carried the feet of Native Indians,
And listen to your heart drumming on the ground beneath my ear,
I recall each beat, each flutter of smile, each encounter of eyes,
Each person bearing beautiful gifts of exchange,
-: The genuine listening, the sincere conversations,
Good intentions, respect for one another,
The pouring out of the heart, the reaching out of a hand.

The strangers...
Who always had a smile or a nod to spare.
The people on the sidewalk...
Who were more than generous with their directions.
The bus driver who went out of his route so I would not get lost.
The receptionist at the museum who gave me a free pass.
The priest who told the story behind each passing town as we journeyed by train.
The boy on the plane who gave me his jacket, so I could stay warm.
The lady on the bus who gave me a hug, and a magic spell.

So many encounters more!
Sun beams waving smiles in the melancholy of fall.
America, you are truly the land of dreams,
As you are too the conjurer of nightmares .

iii.
I am grateful for the ticking and placing of time, which brought me across the sea of indifference, and fear, and placed me at the feet of the throne of dreams - There to witness the opportune moment of the mother, Dream Weaver giving birth to her son.

Dream Catcher!
People of many colors, speaking one language, dreaming the same dream in their midnight slumber. The hand of the moon walked upon the face of the earth, returning full circle at the 11 th hour to greet the new son born to a new dawn. Fireworks, jubilation, a sigh of relief. Triumphant fists dancing in the air, moving to the sound of hope.
Yes we can! Yes we can!

Yes we can! Yes we can! Malaysia Boleh!
I think of my homeland, and loved ones …
Perhaps, we can dream too.

I am grateful …
For being in a moment engraved on the leaf of history, a mouth among millions, reaching for the skies, drinking in the promise of a better tomorrow.

And as for you America,
Had I known I loved you before I met you, I would have loved myself a little bit more.


God bless the United States of America, and God bless us all.


Special thanks to the US Embassy and IVLP team: Gloria, Marta, Diane, Anni Bel, Elaine

Back From USA

Class of 2008 Fall PDC, Lost Valley, USA

Hello everyone!

Salaam to my wonderful sponsors and friends who have given me their blessings and support. I hope these times find you well. It is good to be back.

I had a glorious time in the US. Celebrated the triumph of Barack Obama on election night, met a lot of amazing people, saw wonderful places & lovely endeavors…felt very at home. It was hard to say goodbye... so I tried postponing it as long as possible. I extended my stay in the US for three weeks to do a short permaculture internship at Lost Valley. I had initially planned to extend it for a whole 2 months and do a longer internship, but a friendly trip to the visa enforcement agency set me back on a short but safe track home.

I got back on Nov 15, eager to start my Permaculture project… but it took me quite a while (2 months to be exact) to get my act together. Though my roots were not too deeply settled in KL, shifting back to my hometown in Batu Arang was not an easy move. A small town, at the end of a windy road… How was I going to make ends meet and do the things I wanted to do? Where was I going to start planting? … And mind you … I’m not only interested in planting trees and vegetables, I want to plant Permaculture seeds.

With the Mayan Calendar coming to an end in 2012, the climate going bezerk, and the economic collapse, a red light blinks incessantly over our heads screaming for attention. I wake up each morning with a slap of reality check on my face. We're seconds away from a global transformation that will most definately involve a lot of destruction as well as construction. Each and every one of us will not be able to escape from contributing to this transformation. Who is going to destroy? Who is going to build? What will be destroyed? What will be saved? I do not have the answers, but I do not feel helpless. Permaculture has given me a choice, a choice to create and not to destroy, and it has given me the tools to do so. I do not have control over what happens in the future ... but I can pass down my legacy, along with many others ... and hopefully, this legacy will be the ground on which our children walk on.

.

Now, we have to move fast, while there is light! I'll be back with some progress soon.

.

.

.

Peace and Love,

Sabina Arokiam

What Is Permaculture?

Permaculture which was first developed as Permanent Agriculture, and then later on evolved into Permanent Culture is about creating sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns." It uses the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems to provide a framework and guidance for people to develop their own sustainable solutions to the problems facing their world, on a local, national or global scale. It is based on the philosophy of co-operation with nature and caring for the earth and its people.

Permaculture DEFINITION

• A globally recognized environmental design methodology. The founders of Permaculture, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, coined the term 25 years ago. Now there are over 4000 independently operated projects in 120 countries
• A holistic ecological approach to the design and development of human settlements takes into account food production, structures, technologies, energy, natural resources, landscape, animal systems, plant systems, and social and economic structures.
• About working with, rather than against, nature. It provides us with the tools to satisfy our needs in a way that sustains the earth, future generations and ourselves.
• Inspired by traditional wisdom, especially the sustainable farming cultures of Asia, India and Africa and incorporates new appropriate methods and technologies.
  

Permaculture ETHICS & PRINCIPLES

EarthCare Permaculture as a design system is based on natural systems. It is about working with nature, not against it - not using natural resources unnecessarily or at a rate at which they cannot be replaced. It also means using outputs from one system as inputs for another (vegetable peelings as compost, for example), and so minimizing wastage.

PeopleCare People care is about looking after us as people, not just the world we live in. It works on both an individual and a community level. Self-reliance, co-operation and support of each other should be encouraged. It is, however, important to look after ourselves on an individual level too. Our skills are of no use to anyone if we are too tired to do anything useful! People care is also about our legacy to future generations.

FairShare The fair shares part of the Permaculture ethic brings earth care and people care together. We only have one earth, and we have to share it - with each other, with other living things, and with future generations. This means limiting our consumption, especially of natural resources, and working for everyone to have access to the fundamental needs of life - clean water, clean air, food, shelter, meaningful employment, and social contact.

This article has been extracted from resources made available on the Permaculture Association of Britain website

Request for Support to Attend a Permaculture and Ecovillage Design Course

For the past 1 year, I have been nurturing the intention to attend a Permaculture and Ecovillage Design Course, being offered from time to time, in a few countries outside Malaysia. Lack of funds for flight ticket, tuition fees, accommodation and lodging have impelled me to put aside this aspiration until a suitable opportunity presented itself, and I think that opportunity has arrived!

I have been sponsored by the US embassy to participate in a 3 week exposure program on NGO Management (see previous post for details) from the 31 August 2008 - 19 September 2008. Coincidentally, a one month Course on Permaculture and Ecovillage Design will be taking place in Oregon a week after my exposure ends. The course is being offered at the Ecovillage and Permaculture Institute of Lost Valley, from 29 September – 24 October 2008.

Finally, the stars in heaven have aligned after a whole year of brewing intentions. I wrote in to register for the Permaculture and Ecovillage Design course, and my application was accepted! As my flight is already being taken care off by the US Embassy, I will only have to worry about finding USD 2000 which covers my course fee, food and accommodation for the entire month. I would like to take this opportunity to request for sponsorship amounting to USD 2000 to support my intentions.

My commitment
1. I will document my entire trip, and offer to share my experience, and knowledge gained from the Permaculture and Ecovillage Design course to individuals/groups/organizations who are interested. My sharing will be made available through presentations, workshops and hopefully published documentation.

2. I also intend to start a pilot Permaculture project for marginalized communities, in a village in Batu Arang which is about 40km’s away from Kuala Lumpur. I am already in discussion to work on a project with my father, Alex Arokiam, an Exco member of the Malaysian Aids Council, who runs several community homes and agriculture initiatives with persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA’s) and refugees from Myanmar.

PLWHA’s have difficulty securing and maintaining jobs due to their health condition and stigma associated with the disease, and refugees are not allowed to work in Malaysia. Permanent Agriculture or Permaculture (abbreviated) is one of the viable practices that can be incorporated into these communities with limited resource and access to economic sustenance.

The earth is non discriminative and non-judgmental. It is also a highly therapeutic medium. Working with the surrounding land in a sustainable and enriching way, through constructive and positive activities will lead to a restored sense of dignity and provide job satisfaction to these marginalized communities.

The following are possible sites that have been identified for the pilot Permaculture project:

Site 1: 2.5 acres of land with jasmine plantation, next to an old mining pool

Site 2: 2.0 acres of land surrounding Welcome Community Home for men living with HIV/AIDS

Site 3: 1.5 acres of abandoned land

Site 4: 2 acres of farmland surrounding the Positive Living Community Home

The US Embassy International Visitor Leadership Program

I was recently invited by the US Embassy to participate in a three week exposure under the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) on NGO Management. The IVLP which is sponsored by the U.S Department of State has distinguished alumni which include such individuals as Margaret Thatcher, Anwar Sadat, Giscard D'Estaing, Indira Gandhi, Julius Nyerere, F.W. deKlerk, Tony Blair and our very own Anwar Ibrahim. I feel very honoured to be given the privelage to participate in such a program.

My program focus is on NGO Management. Key areas of interest that have been suggested for our program line up include Permaculture, Environmental Awareness, Media Literacy, Participative Arts, Alternative-Informal Education/Learning, Youth Development and Support, Community Development, and Fundraising and networking.

I will leave for the US on the 30th of August. The program will end on the 19th of September. It is less than a month away!
Is this for real? I still can't believe that I am actually going to the US, and I can't think of a better time to go... with the seeds of change wafting in the air. I hope I bump into Obama ...

Stories From the Heart, by Refugee Kids for Refugee Kids

Creative Facilitator
Storytelling Workshop for Refugees
2008

Recently, Chris Ng and I were awarded a RM 10,000 grant to run a 3 month story telling workshop for Myanmarese refugee kids. The two newspaper articles gives a brief description of the grant and its grantees.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/Features/20080730150227/Article/indexF_html
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/Streets/Monday/Stories/2285768/Article/

Chris and I are conducting separate workshop sessions for a total of 30 Myanmarese refugee kids, from two ethnic communities. Each workshop comprises 12 x 3 hour sessions.

This is an excerpt from our proposal:
There are 10,000 registered refugee children in Malaysia. Many more may be unregistered… how many exactly, no one knows for sure. They live in an environment where normal childhood development is a constant challenge. Their priorities are survival and escaping the authorities. Formal education, for most of them is a fairy tale, something to dream about, never to achieve.

While the registered children have a glimmer of hope of going to a foreign adopted land, the reality is many of them will spend at least a few years of ‘lost childhood’ growing up in the jungles, squatters or crowded flats that they call home, here in Malaysia. These children have stories to tell. These stories need to be told so that they know they are not alone…displaced…in a community where they struggle daily to make their presence invisible. They need a voice, one that is seldom heard, if at all. They need to share their stories of laughter, of dreams, of hope, of life because they are living it. They need to tell these stories because the stories come from their hearts. They own these stories.

Environmental Art

Art Installation
Zero Energy Markers
‘Zero Energy Homes’ Launch
Nov 2007, Bird Island, Sentul Park

It's a relief to know that some of the housing developers in Malaysia have started looking into greener technologies for buildings. With energy and environmental issues being in the forefront of their CSR (Corporate Social Responsability) initiatives , YTL Land and Development Berhad initiated the Bird Island Green Zero Energy Homes Competition, the first green (or sustainable) architectural competition of its kind, in recognition of the fact that energy-efficient buildings are the future of architecture and building design.

Eight architects and designers from six countries - UK, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, China, and USA were chosen by YTL to submit designs for six Eco-friendly homes on Bird Island.
The tiny island is a green haven located in the 35-acre Sentul Park, part of YTL Land's iconic urban renewal development in Sentul, within a social and cultural landscape that is supportive of contemporary design and architecture.

I was one of the 7 artists invited to erect art installations to commemorate the launching of the project. As Sentul Park was once a railway hub, I decided to mount discarded railway slippers along the Sentul Park landscape to symbolize ‘100 – 0 energy’ countdown markers for the ‘Zero Energy Homes’ project.

Refugee Community Theatre

Project Coordinator
Community Theatre Roadshow on HIV/AIDS Awareness
by Myanmarese refugees, for Myanmarese Refuge Communities
2007

In the first quarter of 2007, I was commissioned by UNHCR to design and implement an appropriate awareness program on HIV/AIDS for Burmese refugees. With the direction and training of Chris Ng, a seasoned HIV/AIDS facilitator and theatre activist, 20 Burmese Youth Leaders were trained as Peer to Peer facilitators, using a ‘Participative Educational Theatre’ (PET) model, which was then animated in their own language to 20 different refugee ‘hot spots’ throughout the Malaysian Peninsular. These PET roadshows were complimented with Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) for HIV/AIDS. The programme proved to be very successful as the refugees could relate to the down to earth, participative and entertaining format of education. The encouraging outcome of almost 100% of the refugees consenting to VCT was a key benchmark in the breakthrough of the awareness programme.

Training session

Theatre outreach at a farming community in the highlands

Our team and some jungle squatters posing for a group shot

Traveling and Playing Through Voluntarism

Volunteer facilitator

English and art classes

2007,Cambodia

The best way to travel is by connecting to the land, and its people.

In February 2007, a couple of friend and I embarked on a volunteer trip to Cambodia . Before the trip, Amira and Reeza who left to Cambodia 2 weeks earlier did some research online and offered their services to two NGO's in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. Upon completing their volunteer stint at an orphanage and a art project by the beach, I met up with them in Seam Reap where we spent 10 rewarding days of fun and well, more fun!

When he got to know about my trip, a priest gave me a couple of euro notes to buy gifts for the children in Cambodia. I went to one of the wholesalers near Petaling Street and bought some shakers,clappers, a plastic drum, candy, educational charts and some stationery. Amira who is from Singapore got colleagues and friends to donate story books and stationery as well.

Amira and Reeza arrived in Siem Reap a day earlier, and being Muslims, wondered around the town in search for halal food, and maybe also a mosque ... As luck would have it, they managed to find one in the village of Stung Tmei not too far away from the town centre of Siem Reap.

A community of about 200 Muslims Cham families lived around the mosque. Besides attending regular school, the children attended daily religious classes at the madrasah in the mosque's compound. Amira and Reeza went up to the Ustaz and asked if we could volunteer to conduct some extra English and art classes for the kids. The Ustaz was very elated, and gave us the green light to start anytime.

We went in 3 hours a day to conduct classes. Reeza taught the older secondary children, while Amira and I worked with the younger ones.The children had a lot of fun learning English through play, songs and movement.

We camped outside the classroom and splashed around with colours, played games, and experimented with rhythm work.Before we left, the children decorated their classroom with the artwork they created.
We promised to go back. In December, we will be organising a charity art exhibition to raise funds for the madrasah's educational programs.

Fallen Leaves - A Theatre Performance About Persons Living with HIV/AIDS by Persons Living With HIV/AIDS

Producer
Fallen Leaves
2006, Theatre Performance
Actors Studio, Bangsar

Coordinator
Fallen Leaves
2008, Road show

Should we brush away and discard the dead leaves that fall to the ground in our backyards? Even fallen leaves have a place, and a special role to play ...

( newspaper article)
http://star-ecentral.com/news/story.asp?file=/2006/12/13/soundnstage/16287133&sec=soundnstage

Fallen Leaves initially started off as a series of drama therapy sessions aimed at promoting expression and self esteem among 10 residents of the Welcome Community Home for PLWHA's (People Living With HIV/AIDS).

My father, Alex Arokiam, manager of Welcome Community Home encouraged me to work with a British theatre director Brian Jones, of Cloudbreak to draw out stories from these very talented and expressive men. Brian then devised and adapted their individual stories into a 4 scene theatre performance.The stories were based on real life experiences. In 3 out of 4 scenes, our scriptwriters also acted as themselves. We performed to a full house and received standing ovation at our premier it Actors Studio, on 8 December 2006.

In 2007, the Fallen Leaves Theater Company refined their acting skills and staged several adaptations of their play at various venues around KL in partnership with Cloudbreak.

This year (2008), Welcome Community Home was awarded a grant by Malaysian Aids Council to conduct a theatre road show around Malaysia, aimed at promoting awareness and addressing stigma of the disease. Under the guidance of George Wielgus of Cloudbreak, they have created a new and engaging body of work in the form of Forum Theatre. Two of our initial scriptwriters and performers, Ridzuan and Bala have since passed away. Both of them were very passionate about passing on their experiences to young people so they do not make the same mistakes they made in life. New members have come in to fill their shoes, and continue their legacy. Fallen Leaves intends to establish their very own theatre company in the future, where PLWHA's and recovering drug addicts can stand on stage, share their stories, and be applauded for their courage and sincerity.

Media Literacy - Promoting Critical Minds & Empowering Young People

Facilitator and workshop content developer
Cahayasuara Communications Centre
2004 - 2006 (and beyond, as guest facilitator)

The 3-day Refocus Media Literacy camp is offered by Cahayasuara Communications Centre to Catholic Youths. During the first 2 days of the camp, youths learn how to deconstruct and analyze media messages, reflect on their patterns and habits of consumption and access the influence media has upon them. On the third day, the youths apply what they have learnt by creating their very own media messages in the form of Public Service Announcements (PSA's) aimed at young people. Besides conducting and facilitating these Media Literacy workshops, I have also developed and facilitated a Creative Expression camp and a Mask Making workshop for youths, while at Cahayasuara.