Urban Permaculture opportunities in 2023 with Boodaville Barcelona
WHEN?
A 12 month contract starting in January 2022.
(Application deadline 10th December 2021 – these positions have been filled)
WHO?
This is a placement for participants with a maximum age of 30 as it is funded by the European Solidarity Corps. We are looking for people who are highly motivated to learn and apply Urban Permaculture, who are responsible and have an interest in ecosocial transition. Applicants should have good communication skills in Spanish as there will be networking and social media tasks. They should be prepared to come to the Poble Sec neighbourhood to work at least three days a week.
WHERE?
Volunteers will live in, or close to, Barcelona and will work in the Poble Sec neighbourhood to create regenerative projects. They will work in a variety of locations including co-working spaces, the offices of collaborating organisations, urban gardens and outdoor public spaces.
WHAT?
January will be a month of observation, planning and training, after which volunteers can implement projects they choose ranging from: organising events and workshops promoting ecosocial transition, implementing permaculture design in the Poble Sec neighbourhood, communication tasks for Boodaville, collaborating with existing organisations on publicly funded projects, creating the project “Permaculture Poble Sec”, helping the Boodaville Association grow by engaging young people and sharing opportunities.
There are many opportunities for independent work, as well as roles collaborating with exisiting groups. There are also opportunities to be involved with permaculure networks across the city and at a regional, national and international level.
Volunteers will work closely with Anna Louise Gurney the coordinator and mentor for this project
WHY?
This European Solidarity Corps project is an opportunity to engage in promoting ecosocial design with long-term effects in a city neighbourhood. All basic living expenses are covered as well as the expenses to travel to Barcelona, and you receive monthly pocket money.
You will be living and learning ethical design, as well as experiencing life in an urban neighbourhood. There are all sorts of possible day to day activities, please read the infopack for more information and if you are eligible you can start the application process by filling in the google form.
Read this post about our upcoming Erasmus+ projects and find out how you can join us on a Permaculture training! This week Lou also shares the Urban Permaculture projects happening in Barcelona.
It’s one of those days where I feel like I have taken on too much. A day to make sure I find the time for some nourishment and empowerment as well as a lot of movement and doing. I am surrounded by house and parenting work (Kira has to pack for Colonias this weekend) and also in the middle of funding applications, managing volunteers and leading workshops. But I have been juggling tasks long enough to have learnt that finding calm, quiet reflection and time to write really does give you space and help you find the joy in what you are doing. And as my yogi tea told me yesterday “Joy is the essence of success”.
So this weeks post is a gathering and organising of ideas, current projects, opportunities and needs.
erasmus + projects
1) living the questions, sanillés 21 – 29 june 2021
I am facilitating this youth worker training on “Regenerative Cultures” with the amazing Aline at a stunning location in the Pyrenees. Frank manages the place and will be hosting us and providing food and we are starting a new collaboration with Sam Miller. Me and Sam had a wonderful meeting yesterday talking about the soil food web, JADAM methods for growing effective microorganisms and we have planned the practical sessions to make and spray these “magical” potions.
We are looking for two volunteers to join us for the week! In return for all food and lodging and attending as much of the course as you can, these two volunteers will help us manage the participants in their reflections groups, indivdual taks, housekeeping roles and timekeeping – and be classroom assistants for Anna Louise and Aline. Please contact us if you are interested! thegurney@gmail.com INFO HERE
2) “BETTER THAN NEW” – YOUTH EXCHANGE AT PIPIRIMOSCA SEPTEMBER 2021
Jessica and Pere are taking the lead on organising this exchange near Valls in Catalunya. A week of exploring permaculture, circular economy and getting hands on experiences to develop skills at fixing and upcycling anything from technology, to building and clothes, to waste food! We are looking for 6 participants from Spain, all expenses paid, INFO HERE
3)ecosocial design everywhere, Youth Worker Training November 2021
Boodaville is very excited to start a new collaboration with Vidalia Intentional Community, and to reunite with Alfred 8 years after teaching our first course together (with the beautiful name “Think Like a Forest”). This project is still a half-finished application at the moment – deadline in 3 days!!!
4) youth exchange with vidalia
In a very last minute move, and mainly because Carlos had the capacity, we have also jumped in to put together a youth exchange with groups of young people coming to Vidalia to co-create the future living spaces, learn and share the important ideas and designs behind living as a community. (Also in the project writing phase)
urban permaculture workshops
I am also preparing for two workshops over the weekend.. thinking about plants, wooden posts, which screws we need, which photos I want to take and share, whether the “good soil” I collected from the Boodaville food forest is still alive after being in a cupboard downstairs for a month! (I hope so!)
Due to COVID limitations, both workshops are already full. We will do more!
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
Lou, founder of Boodaville has a rant about Brexit then writes about real issues like effective microorganisms, Jadam, windowsill gardening and urban permaculture.
I was wondering what to write today, and had BBC 6Music on while I took some photos of our little gardens here in the flat in Barcelona.
And now I have to start with a rant after hearing the pro-Brexit narrative “Britain is way ahead of Europe with vaccines” so some of you might get to go to Cyprus on 17th May. I am so sick of the bias news everywhere.. we know Brexit isn’t that great, we know the EU messed up sourcing vaccines, stop this constant media influence to try and make things fit the story the government want you to believe in.
The reality in Spain, for which I am truly grateful, is that we have been living a fairly normal life. We’re restricted to our own districts except for work; but with schools, most shops, circuses, museums open since June (except for a few weeks in November where they closed everything except schools). It is true that we may not be allowed to travel for Easter, and like everyone, we desperately miss easy to access concerts (here you can go with limited capacity and advance booking) and festivals, and mountains.
But the UK have totally messed up and it is desperately difficult for people to be locked down so severely for so long. The craziest thing to have happened since the war probably, and massively worthy of sensible analysis and news reports.
Anyway that’s all politics. People are amazing, resilient and resourceful, we will find our way and keep looking after each other.
I’ll end on a joke: On the way home from our weekend of planting and grafting at Boodaville I commented that one great thing about the restrictions is that there hasn’t been any traffic at all for 6 months, and Fraser said “There you are then, more positives from Coronavirus than there are from Brexit”
Now I’ve spent nearly 300 words on COVID and Brexit, I should, by my own guidelines, spend 600 talking about Ecosocial Design and addressing issues related to climate breakdown and ecological collapse which, although more long-term, are undisputedly more important.
Jadam
I am finally getting very very close to the end of the Regenerative Agriculture course from Planeses. The official end date was 6th January!!
While I have never been that excited about compost (I love the ideas from the Wheaton/ Klassen-Koop book that say “bury food” which is what we do at Boodaville!!), I am excited about what feeding your food forest can do. Natural fertilizers and effective microorganisms are an amazing input to boost the ecosystems you are regenerating. You do need a lot of barrels, and we still haven’t found out where to get “molasses” or “suero de leche” near Boodaville, but I think for the future of productive agriculture in the Vall Rovira, and based on the experience form Marc at Planeses, this could be a great project for 2021. In this short video I make some fairly unfounded conclusions about our observations in the food forest!
The system I was learning about is Jadam, I love the idea that you should mix into the fertilizer organic matter from the same plant that you are trying to grow. It makes sense thinking about natural systems! Preparing mixes of effective micro-organisms will be an amazing practical project for Sanilles on our “Regenerative Cultures” training in June!! A deadline to get the materials together, a budget, and a chance to actually learn this — by DOING!
Gardening in barcelona
I have finally made a pigeon proof garden with herbs and lettuces. The second windowsill is cherry tomatoes and strawberries, plus baby pigeons – can you see them in the picture? And we have rebranded the “shitty patio” and are now calling it the “shady garden”. Here I plant anything that will, or might, grow without any direct sunlight. (Basically anything that grows in the UK jaja) but very little food. The straw bale mushroom farm project didn’t get realised… this year.
The top flat on the new building next door has a HUGE terrace. I was thinking about lemons, and thought maybe we could offer the neighbours a lemon tree for the terrace in return for sharing the harvest.
This motivation to produce anything we can right here, comes very much from watching Kiss the Ground, and wanting to take any steps possible towards a diet that REGENERATES, imagine if we can improve ecosystems by eating!!
Has anyone got a lemon tree that needs a new home?
this weeks crazy ideas and new stuff
The best part about this feature is that I look back at previous posts and build and reflect on them. I changed my weekly organisation so Mondays is house and personal (mobile off!); Tuesdays is project management and accounting (Now until 8:30 pm thanks to our new babysitter and my Tuesday re-location to a coworking space!!!!); Wednesdays is Boodaville site and Rovira Regenerativa; Thursdays is Website and Poble Sec projects; Fridays I write and learn, and work on education projects. Perfect. Not too much is it?
Moving on from last week: We have potential volunteers (but you can still apply until tomorrow!), we haven’t moved forward with social media strategy, although have a new collaborator who wants to make documentary style videos for us! He may crush my budding youtuber career. (How sad for everyone)
I got all excited about offering a workshop on water at my kid’s school, Abel continues to be very excited by Biochar and we have a free workshop in Poble Sec on 21st March. I’m developing the office in Poble Sec idea, we could go all in and find premises that would be accommodation for 2 Barcelona based CES volunteers and a classroom and an office! Dream BIG!!
Then I realised that the process of identifying the needs for Boodaville, and Rovira Regenerativa gives very clear roles that need to be filled, so these dream volunteers would have plenty of work in return for getting their BCN living expenses paid. Let’s bring this down to concrete requests – do you know any premises for reasonable rent in Poble Sec? Do you know any hostal owners that are looking to diversify income streams? Also, we need an accountant (again).
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
