Peek into Permaculture course brought people and ideas together

On a sunny Saturday morning in October our new permaculture course was about to start for the first time. The one-day Peek into Permaculture course was going to take place Maunulan Mediapaja in Helsinki, and at ten it was time to get the course started!

Organized in collaboration with Lumia, our friend and co-teacher Alexis and the Sustainability Community Finland, the event brought together a diverse group of participants from across the Helsinki region to explore the ethics, principles, and practical applications of permaculture in daily life in an urban setting. The atmosphere was buzzing with curiosity as we dove into the day.

Learning, sharing, connecting

We kicked off the morning by getting to know each other before diving into permaculture’s guiding ethics and Holmgren's 12 design principles. These foundational elements of permaculture sparked great conversations spanning from priotizing self-care to permaculture on Mars! 

Together we explored how permaculture isn't just about gardening - it's about designing sustainable systems for ourselves, our homes and our communities. In the afternoon we shifted focus to social permaculture, examining how these principles apply to the current social problems we see in the world, like loneliness or feeling exhausted all the time. Sharing about these topics was valuable, even though we might not have completely solved all these issues in one sitting! 

Before the end of the indoor sessions of the day, Alexis presented practical ideas for sustainable living practices & possibilities in cities, from first-step kind of ideas to more radical ways of life. Lots of food for thought! As a visiting keynote speaker, we had Athanasios Christopoulos talking about sustainable urban food production, food security and food sovereignty, and presenting the urban gardening project Kepos, which was very interesting and also linked into many of the themes we'd talked about during the day.
 

Nature walk & allotment visit

We ended the day with an outdoor session, where we visited a local permaculture allotment that belongs to Sustainability Community's co-founder Sara. Walking through Central Park to get to the allotment was a wonderful way to connect with each other and nature, and onsite we were able to learn a few simple and practical gardening methods.

The people make the event

As usual, the best part of the course were the discussions that emerged from and within the group. We, most of us at least, are lacking connection in our lives, and one purpose of this course was to counter that by bringing like-minded people together. Listening to people in the ending circle, it was important to create this space for learning and connection. I personally am very thankful for the great connection to the Sustainability Community Finland, Sara and Katja, and to everyone who was present for sharing their ideas, wisdom and experiences!

We will definitely offer this course again, so please do join the Sustainability Community on LinkedIn and/or sign up to our newsletter to keep up-to-date.

Thank you all for making this day one to remember!