Perm. in French Quebec - Teaching and needing encouragement

[ExpatAussie]

Hear ye Hear ye! Permaculture is going to be taught in French for the first time (as far as we know) in Quebec City, Canada starting today! Isn't that exciting?! The only trouble is that all the main permaculture material is written in English and the job of translating and teaching is quite a load for new time teacher French-Canadian, Louis-Martin Guenette. He starts teaching today but is feeling overwhelmed by the challenges and that so much of the permaculture experience and examples are in warmer climes (if you were living through temps of -47 with windchills making it feel like -54 degrees Celsisus you would know what we mean). So, if you would like to send Louis some encouragment, or if you know of material already translated into French, you can email him at [email:2zr0gvek]lmguen@yahoo.ca[/email:2zr0gvek] or post a note here. He would dearly love to hear of other cold climate permaculture practioners (especially in Canada) that can offer support and tried and tested examples to bolster his teaching, so please send these to him as well.

For those of you who are wondering why a French Canadian is getting some forum time on an Aussie website, it is quite inspirational and the connection is this - Louis-Martin and Marie-Eve were studying and travelling in Australia during 2000/01 and while hitchhiking in the New South Wales bush were picked up by someone who told them about permaculture and dropped them off at Tagari Farm and providentially Jeff Lawton was only on the second day of a 2 week design course and so they were able to join the class. I was one of their classmates and am an Australian making Canada my home. The rest is history..

[muttabuttasaurus]

Hey Aussie exPat, have you ever looked at this mailing list?
link to permaculture list (http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture) i'm pretty sure i saw someone from quebec on there, you might find someone there. at least there are quite a few north americans who post here anyway.
another place possibly worth looking is the north american p/c directory north american p/c directory (http://www.permacultureactivist.net/amperdir/AmerPcDir.htm) but i haven't seen it myself cause it costs $...
good luck

[Cacahouète]

That is funny!

I just put up a website about permaculture in Québec just yesterday! Permacultivons! : le portail de la permaculture au Québec (http://permaculture.ouvaton.org) I am glad to hear there is something going on! Come by the site, there is a forum there just waiting for people to discuss swales, mulch and chickens :p

As for course material in french, Grégoire Lamoureux from the Kootenays Permaculture Institute has some (he is my certificate teacher from last spring in Rougemont, Québec) maybe he is willing to share some of his stuff.

Well anyways, it seems the movement is growing in Québec! That's all good news!

«perma quoi ?»

[GeoffandNadiaLawton]

:) Hi Expat
this is great to hear sitting down here in the Dead Sea Valley 400m below sea level.
This is the sort of thing that changes the world and I see the forum is already making new connections for you all in Canada.
Go Son Go
For the Earth
Geoff and Nadia Lawton

[oneil]

WOW! Awesome Job, soldiers fight on....to victory!


Greetings from Noatak, Alaska, way up here in cold country. We envy your warm weather! We need some help up here. We posted a question regarding cold climate permaculture. please see if you can help.

Respectfully,

Chris and Aimee

[Mont]

It seems PC has been taught in French before - if you go to the site http://www.rama.1901.org/ev/permaculture.htm it tells you (for those who speak it):En France une seule association oeuvre au développement de cette agriculture naturelle et propose régulièrement des stages de formation/initiation dans toute la France : Las Encantadas, BP 217, Limoux Cédex, Tel : 04 68 31 51 11. It seems Permaculture 2 (Mollison) and some Fukuoka books have been translated into French. There's also L'Academie Bretonne de Permaculture in Brittany and the email contact is Steve Read at read@wanadoo.fr.

Mont

[alextacy]

A thought for some of the North American permies on the forum... and the rest of us!

I have stumbled onto a group of forums called "Garden Web". There are over 50 different forums grouped together, and include a permaculture forum, companion plants, organics, etc as well as forums on individual plants.

There are forums for world regions, and a permie one for North America so they may have a few better ideas about how to deal with long winter conditions!

For the rest of us the other forums will provide some useful info, although it'll be a matter of picking and choosing advice between those that like their chemical warfare and those that enjoy a more subtle approach.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/permacult/

Make sure you don't leave us for them though! :D

alextacy

[muttabuttasaurus]

alextacy, thankyou, that website is just what I have been looking for...

[ExpatAussie]

Hi all - thanks so much for the encouragement and information that you have posted. Louis has been greatly encouraged and passes along his thanks and I have included some excerpts from a recent email that show this...

"So, thanks to you to write on the forum for our course. Things are working out great, there's a fresh permaculture trend in my life and it's great. We had course no2
yesterday, it went very well. Although technically we
still have to adjust, I mean by that that time is hard
to contain. From day one , we decided that we wanted
the course to be interactive with the group, with
less magistral teaching. Anyway, it seems that people
are really enjoying!! What a great feeling for me! We
were 29 including me, isn't it great!!"

For those of you who would like another French link, another one is at permaculure.ouvaton.org. According to Louis "(ouvaton means : where are we going?) Full of great links and also good simple texts supported by a few drawings."

Thanks again for all your help!