{"id":37133,"date":"2017-06-17T10:34:19","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T13:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=37133"},"modified":"2018-06-18T11:18:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T14:18:57","slug":"horta-inteligente-holds-permaculture-and-composting-workshop-in-providencia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=37133","title":{"rendered":"‘Intelligent Garden’ Holds Permaculture and Composting Workshop in Provid\u00eancia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On Sunday June 11, during the Virada Sustent\u00e1vel Rio de Janeiro<\/a> (Sustainable Turnaround Rio de Janeiro), an introductory workshop on permaculture<\/a> and composting<\/a>, organized by Horta Inteligente<\/a> (Intelligent Garden), was held at the foot of Morro da Provid\u00eancia<\/a> (located in Rio de Janeiro’s\u00a0Port Region<\/a>). The project was borne from a personal concern of founder Elis\u00eangela Cielo, who today lives there but is originally from Bahia, owing to the lack of a positive role model for children about environmental issues and her perceived idleness of children outside of school time. Along with other collaborators like Lorena Portela, an environmental engineer, Elis\u00eangela founded the NGO Horta Inteligente<\/a>, based in the <\/span>Instituto Central do Povo (ICP \u2013 People\u2019s Central Institute)<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>a Methodist center which has been a source of support for Provid\u00eancia and its young people since 1906<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Tia Dora Day Care<\/a>, located at ICP and the focus of Horta Inteligente\u2019s work, cares for children between the ages of two and five. At this age, children are at a crucial stage in development to receive positive stimuli for creative and ecological learning. \u201cThe children are so smart, and already know a lot about the garden\u2013enough to teach their friends and family at home. They\u2019re multipliers of the project,\u201d says Elis\u00eangela. In addition to the activities at the center, Horta Inteligente performs clean ups and maintenance work on the green space, participates in public and private events demonstrating permaculture practices while raising funds for the project. Horta Inteligente previously received financial assistance from City Hall but owing to lack of funds this support was stopped.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The aim of the workshop was to bring together all the people who wanted to move away from conventional practices that are harmful to the environment and to encourage them to contribute to the dialogue by sharing their own experiences and knowledge. \u201cIt is still difficult to get involved. I want to dedicate myself to it more and make a home garden,\u201d said Marcos, a participant in the event and resident of Provid\u00eancia.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The event was attended by a diverse group in age, ethnicity, personal and professional training who added much value to the debate and experience. Everyone was invited to present a little about themselves and to say how they felt they could contribute to the project and help the environment as well as present any related projects they were participating in in order to increase the network sharing. It was a collaborative exchange that helped participants learn how to better their communities. \u201cI do not believe in politics anymore, we have to do it ourselves, pass the knowledge on, that\u2019s politics! We still lack information and communication but we need to exchange what we can and do good things without worrying about being too old to learn and form a better relationship with our planet,\u201d affirmed Mariana, a geographer who was also the event photographer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The workshop sought to show that designing spaces to be harmonious with nature is a life philosophy, and that it is necessary to establish systems based on natural patterns in order to create sustainable human communities. Examples of housing built from local, natural and renewable materials often considered as waste or materials of no value were considered. It also reinforced the principle of returning to our origins, observing how indigenous peoples created settlements, and how rural dwellers with scarce resources build homes. Lorena said, \u201cThe wattle and daub house works well but is unfortunately associated with underdevelopment, and Chagas disease, when in actual fact\u2013when done properly with the correct and consistent maintenance\u2013it works very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Genaro Martins, resident of Santo Cristo, told participants, \u201cI believe that I\u2019m the oldest person here so I think it\u2019s good to share my experience: I came to Rio from Bahia when I was 23 years old, and until now I\u2019ve never taken any modern medicine. I only ever use natural cures. My family is really large; I have sisters who have had 15 children who are all well. In my building, along with my family, I grow and cultivate over 200 different species of plants, I live off this cultivation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The roundtable, integration and debate revolved around the three pillars of permaculture: caring for the environment (soil, forest, water); collaborative economy (the sharing of surplus); and caring for people. \u201cSmall farmers are encouraged to cultivate using fertilizers and other toxic products on their land. They spread poison. We\u2019ve already noticed that these agents cause diseases; people are dying out in the fields. We need to reintegrate ourselves with nature, to really understand and know the environment we live in,\u201d added Lorena. The project encouraged participants to purchase seedlings at the headquarters which had been grown by the initiative not only to raise funds but to complement or start their own green space at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As a finale to the workshop event, a practical class in composting was held to make participants aware of the socio-environmental importance of separating organic waste and that even if people cannot or do not compost at home by separating their waste when they throw it out they facilitate the work of waste pickers, reducing the need for landfills and garbage dumps. All the organic remains that were used in the class came from the breakfast that had been offered at the headquarters. \u201cWe can reuse so much of what we generally consider waste–like bagasse (sugar cane residue), fibre, and fruit seeds to complement our foods. If not, just put it in the food recycling to compost,\u201d said Elis\u00eangela.<\/p>\n

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A composter can be made from 3.5L buckets like those we get chlorine or margarine in because they\u2019re made of resistant plastic and have good dimensions for this purpose. It\u2019s generally recommended that you stack three buckets for an average-sized family of three to four people. For larger families or communities, it is recommended that specific plastic crates are purchased. Participants learned that any object of natural origin–such as paper, coffee filters, and plant leaves–can be aggregated according to the correct moist residue ratios. When done correctly, the compost will form nutrient rich humus within the space of a few months which can be used on the garden as bio-fertilizer, a free and sustainable practice that can even be done indoors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On Sunday June 11, during the Virada Sustent\u00e1vel Rio de Janeiro (Sustainable Turnaround Rio de Janeiro), an introductory workshop on permaculture and composting, organized by Horta Inteligente (Intelligent Garden), was held […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":37135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1333,329,452],"tags":[1261,2405,1570,842,738,240,148,144,471,287,2753],"writer":[2440],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-event-reports","8":"category-solutions","9":"category-rio20","10":"tag-central-rio","11":"tag-community-garden","12":"tag-composting","13":"tag-debate","14":"tag-gamboa","15":"tag-permaculture","16":"tag-port-region","17":"tag-morro-da-providencia","18":"tag-sustainability","19":"tag-urban-agriculture","20":"tag-virada-sustentavel","21":"writer-juliana-torres","22":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37133"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=37133"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=37133"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=37133"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=37133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}