What is a Permaculture workshop? You may well ask. Well! Everyone who attended the workshop at MHP International School now knows the answer to that question:

not least because the presenter, Vitoon Panyakul, is one of, if not the, foremost “eco-activists” in Thailand creating organizations such as the Green Net Cooperative and Earth Net Foundation, as well as translating the seminal book “An Introduction to Permaculture” by Bill Mollison into Thai.

Simply put Permaculture is a systematic method of analysing an area of land in order to produce organic, tasty food in a sustainably efficient manner, no matter the size of the plot available.

Vitoon gave a great summary of the basic principles of permaculture.

We created a plan of the available land. It may be a balcony or a large garden.

Our workshop looked at unused land surrounding our kitchen and we created a small map of the area. With that and an idea of what we wanted to achieve we created a plan.

The plan involved all aspects of the land, including shade, sun, and available water, among other principles we had learned, and we presented it to the group for the final session.

We learnt the importance of eating according to the season and our climate.

It may not change the world but we were all convinced it was a step in the right direction.

We believe it is important for us to start thinking about the quality of our food and where it comes from and perhaps more importantly, to impart these ideas into our school curriculum.