How You Can Help Nepal Now! by Brandon Bodhi Denton

The PermaculTourism Initiative is a regenerative tourism project which offers educational travel experiences which serve local communities. This project has taken shape through our annual Permaculture Adventure in the Himalayas, which includes service-learning projects at a high-school, a small family farm, and a Tibetan refugee settlement. There are a lot of exciting success stories from our work in Nepal that I could share, but first I want to tell you the main reason for writing this article. This coming October and November, our team will be building earthquake-resilient homes in an area of Nepal which was highly affected by the earthquakes last April/May, using a natural building technique called “Earthbag” or “Superadobe” construction, to build earthquake resilient homes for those in need.

This earthbag building workshop will begin October 25, and you can still JOIN our team! The workshop will last for 3 weeks, through November 14, and will be guided by two skilled and experienced building instructors, Lucas Trotman and Justin Hall. I’ll also be there co-facilitating the experience and sharing insights on Permaculture and Nepali culture. Please see the attached flyer below and visit www.nepalresilience.org for more information on what’s included and the suggested financial contribution for this NOT-FOR-PROFIT workshop.

I know that’s just a month and a half away, and many of you have families, important work, and inspiring projects keeping you rooted at home, and you can’t just drop everything and fly over to the Himalayas. Thats Ok! You can still contribute tremendously by DONATING to our GoFundMe Campaign. 100% or these donations will go towards building materials and paying local people help rebuild homes and learn this highly appropriate and accessible building technique.

The earthquake came just after our Spring 2015 Permaculture Adventure, and it was a life-changing experience. Luckily I was not harmed, and their were few injuries of those near me, but as you probably know, nearly 9,000 people lost their lives, and nearly 170,000 homes were destroyed, just from the first earthquake alone. I joined a team which was delivering relief supplies in Gorkha District, which brought me to the village where we will now be building these earthquake resilient homes. Nepal will recover, and amongst this tragedy, many are now seeing great opportunity for building greater sustainability and resilience. The name of this project is the Nepal Resilience Project, and that is exactly what our goal is; to help establish more resilience in Nepal through Permaculture and appropriate Natural Building technologies.

Another way you can help is by printing and posting the attached flyer below, or by sharing the following links:

If you are not able to come to this workshop, but are interested in joining one of our service-learning programs in Nepal, the next one will be our Permaculture Adventure April 8-28, 2016. This 3 week program will include trekking through Himalayan villages, practical lessons in permaculture and local earth-skills, serving and interacting with local communities, soaking in hot springs, daily yoga, and more! For more info visit: www.nepalpermacultureadventure.com or www.permacultourism.com

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Another exciting update is the recent establishment of our non-profit organization, Woven Earth, through which we will continue to foster community resilience and ecological balance through our worldwide Regenerative Design service-learning programs. Look forward to hear more about Woven Earth soon!

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