Communicating Permaculture in Spanish

by charliewilson | May 30, 2023

Communicating Permaculture in Spanish

We feel that when trying to promote permaculture in the Spanish speaking world there are still several hurdles to overcome. One main hurdle seems to be a series of prejudices about permaculture, often confusing the term with an ecological gardening or cultivation technique. We have also personally experienced and received the feedback that the concept is either connected to something that is done only by people who have a lot of money (think big earthworks for example) or by people who use the idea of natural processes as an excuse for being lazy (and want everything for free).

In this context we feel there is a clear need and opportunity in the Spanish speaking world to communicate the basic ideas of permaculture more explicitly and in detail, including all the ethical and other principles as well as all the permaculture flower petals or RetroSuburbia’s 3 B’s (Built Biological and Behavioural) and show its value by doing so. At the same time we feel this could be creating a ground to give impulse to a variety of permaculture projects throughout the Spanish speaking permaculture community, in all its social, economical and cultural contexts.

The idea is to create a meetingplace for Spanish speaking permaculture practictioners and/or interessees, where material optimized for different social networks could be co-created. These resources would be a toolkit for anyone that wants to promote permaculture in Spanish. This facilitated meetingplace and participatory process would give space to different voices and perspectives of permaculture, trying to reflect its diversity but also offer criteria of maintaining quality and some unifying guidelines. Ideally, the basic material resulting from this process would be available for free online through the CoLab website, open to be built on at a future stage.

Click here to see this page in Spanish.

Funded with 2326.67 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : complete

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Team

Jorge Barbosa, Aline VaMo, Camille Burkhard, Laura Annastazia Rudin

Reporting Officer: Jorge Barbosa

Previously: Auba Riera

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Area

Diversity, participation and engagement, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives 2023

Create a draft image of the recent state of permaculture thinking in the Spanish speaking world, identifying the countries and areas that are proclaiming to have a permaculture movement, visualizing who speaks about permaculture in which areas, what they are saying and in what direction they are developing (family projects, ecovillage, professional designers, regenerative agriculture practitioners…) → spreadsheet

Create and reinforce connections between different permaculture practitioners in the Spanish speaking world, with a special focus on those who approach permaculture professionally or wish to do so, by using a participatory process for the design of GG (General Goal) 3.
Create texts and images optimized for different social media platforms (facebook, instagram, whatsapp…) that help permaculture practitioners (and specifically professional consultants, designers and educators) in the Spanish speaking world to communicate fundamental concepts and ideas of permaculture. These resources will also help to make visible to a wider audience the value of the permaculture design approach in our current global climate and socioeconomic context.
- Make the created material freely and easily available on perma.earth and through collaborating agents.
- Impulse the circulation of the created material in the social media channels of the participants of the process by a hashtag campaign.

OUTCOMEs 2023

First Design Process CEAP (for collaboration between group members): https://cloud.perma.earth/s/AfmdoBSLyYxB28n
Form to send to people/projects made on Baserow: Recogida de proyectos de permacultura // Baserow
Design Kathy ‘recopilando datos “communicate PC in Spanish”’ using the Design Web: Recogida datos communicate pc in Spanish • Red de diseño / Untitled view • Kumu
Database of Spanish speaking PC projects or websites that talk about PC: https://cloud.perma.earth/s/jHif3pR6xXJHL7k
Baserow results of people/projects that responded to our mail and filled out the form here
Infographics of data harvested here
Final email to be sent out by the end of October, sending these results to the Spanish speaking PC community, and inviting them into the CoLab again, to see if we can go for another Year of the Emergent Festival next year and collaborate

Objectives 2024

1. In phase 2 of this project (Emergent Festival 2024) we envision the Design of a Work Group to co-create a set of Permaculture Infographics in Spanish and its Process, or put in other words, we want to Design the Participatory Design that will take place in phase 3, a Comm-PC-Span (com-psi-span) Festival within the Emergent Festival.

2. Engage in this collaborative permaculture design process and document it, sharpening our own designer’s skills as well as sharing an example of a possible diploma portfolio design with the world.

3. As a consequence / impact line of events: Reinforce the Spanish Speaking Permaculture Movement and Make the Permaculture CoLab more wider known.

outcomes 2024

What has been achieved in Y2?
We believe to have covered the goals for Y2, since:
1. We have formed, designed and developed the Work Group (ourselves: Aline, Auba and Jorge), created the template for the infographics and designed the Parcipatory Process for Y3 (between ourselves and the people we are contacting with).
2. We have started to take the needed actions to implement this design, improving our design skills in the process.
3. in this process we are already connecting with the Spanish speaking permaculture community and at the same time promoting work and projects within CoLab.

What has been done concretely?
– Agreeing on a Communication Strategy: how to develop a simple infographic template, where each collaborating project can present themselves, connecting their activities with (at least) on the the petals from David Holmgren’s “Permaculture Flower”, in order to be able to present (Spanish speaking) permaculture projects and at the same time Permaculture itself as a systemic and holistic design method (Aline + Auba + Jorge).
– Developing a participatory desing on miro (using design web) and harvesting ideas and actions from it (Aline + Auba + Jorge).
– Updating website in Spanish (Aline).
– Updating contacts’ database in Nextcloud, marking who has answered in Y1 and adding new contacts (Jorge).
– Creating a graphic template for the infographics and improving it (Auba).
– Updating the texts for the emails, sending emails to people who have previously answered (in Y1) and to new contacts. (Auba + Aline).
– Sorting out the answered emails and gathering the group of interested people/projects in collaborating in Y3, the next phase of this project – a “Comm-PC-Span Festival” within Emergent Festival, where people can present their own PC projects in Spanish, through the infographics and using the framework we have developed (Alina + Auba).
– Share information about this project in Spanish speaking permaculture related social networks (Auba).
– Preparing Reports and attending Emergent Festival events (Jorge)

Objectives 2025

Following what we have done in Y2 of this project (Emergent Festival 2024), this year we aim to finalize the harvesting of feedbacks and engaging with the permaculture projects and people we have contacted previously in order to have them on board for Y3 of Comm-PC-Span (Emergent Festival 2025).
These people will present their projects and co-create with us a set of Permaculture Infographics in Spanish, this will become a sort of a Comm-PC-Span Festival within the Emergent Festival.
We will continue promoting this project (and permaculture in Spanish) on social networks.
Engage in this collaborative permaculture design process and document it, sharpening our own designer’s skills as well as sharing an example of a possible diploma portfolio design with the world.
As a direct consequence of this project and of integrating new team members, we are reinforcing the Spanish speaking Permaculture movement and increasing the visibility of the Permaculture CoLab.

OUTCOMES 2025

We are very pleased with the final result of our work as a team and we hope you enjoy it too! We were able to put out a set of infographics that showcase several permaculture projects from the international Spanish speaking community, highlighting the holistic aspect of permaculture. Our aim is to share this work with the social networks and let it’s ripple effects emerge.

This team has changed over the three years, but we’ve managed to stay focused on our goals and integrate the new creative ideas and skills of our new members. The workflow has been pleasant, we’ve had good time management and effective communication, having worked mostly asynchronously, which was sometimes challenging. We felt we could have had a few meetings or co-working time to have more efficiency in the design and layout of the infographics.

We feel enriched by this collaborative design experience and we deeply hope that the impact this project can have on the people involved and on all who will see it can be useful and inspiring.

resources created

Year 1:

Baserow results of people/projects that responded to our mail and filled out the form

Infographics of data harvested

Year 2:

Workflow process

https://perma.earth/project/comunicar-la-permacultura-en-espanol/

Year 3:

Infographics of Projects

contact links

Jorge Barbosa email: jorge.permacultura@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorge-barbosa-161937b1

Camille Burkhard email: camille@permadventures.com

web: Insta: @permadventures

CoLab Podcast

The CoLab Podcast was funded through the Emergent Festival and is hosted on the Learn website.

In these Podcast interviews, we interview people from around the world who are involved in interesting and inspiring grassroots permaculture projects.

Aims of the project

The aim is to give a platform for grassroots permaculture projects to speak about what they are doing and to gain exposure and promotion.

We also aim to create a pool of educational resources that can be accessed by anybody. This will provide value and will help to attract people to the CoLab.

Funded with 1848.12 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : complete

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Team

Charlie Wilson, Daniel Attwell

Reporting Officer: Daniel Atwell

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Area

Training and eLearning, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives 2023

We would prepare by using the CoLab slack channel and CoLab newsletter to find 6 willing participants who want to be interviewed about their grassroots permaculture projects. This could take 1 month.

Before the interviews, we would glean some basic information about the participant’s projects so that we can then prepare questions.

The interviews themselves would be 1 hour long at a maximum. We would aim to do one interview a week, over the course of 6 weeks. We would pay the participants a fee for the interviews as an incentive.

After the interviews, there may need to be some minor editing. We would need to do a short write-up and then upload the materials to the Learn website, perhaps adding some graphics and making it look presentable.

We would then seek to promote the podcasts using the CoLab Slack channel, CoLab LinkedIn, and CoLab newsletter.

OUTCOMEs 2023

We received extra funding and finally had the capacity to record 7 podcast interviews.

All of the interviews have been completed, listened back to, and edited. We have created a “home” page for the CoLab podcasts and then created individual web pages for each interview. We have added a write-up and some simple graphics.

One episode per month was released, as this allowed for promotion using the CoLab newsletter, slack channel, and LinkedIn channel. All podcast episodes are now up and available.

The biggest problem during the project was arranging interviews with people who didn’t show up. This happened a number of times and was a considerable waste of time for the team.

The best part of the project was learning about all of the wonderful grassroots projects and hearing inspiring stories from people making an actionable difference.

Objectives 2024

After a successful initiative in 2023 of the CoLab Podcast project, the same team is hoping to promote more grassroots projects with another series of podcasts.

Preparation: Using the CoLab slack channel and CoLab newsletter to find 6 more and new willing participants who want to be interviewed about their grassroots permaculture projects. This could take 1 month.

Before interviews: get some basic information about the participant’s projects so that we can then prepare questions.

The interviews: 1 hour long maximum. Aim to deliver one interview a week, over the course of 6 weeks. We would pay the participants a fee for the interviews as an incentive.

After interviews: possibly minor editing. Prepare short write-up and then upload the materials to the Learn website, perhaps adding some graphics and making it look presentable.

We would then seek to promote the podcasts using the CoLab Slack channel, CoLab LinkedIn, and CoLab newsletter.

outcomes 2024

The CoLab Podcast, which has now been running for two years in a row has yet again been a very successful project with all our aims and objectives having been met.

We will soon roll out, in monthly installments, each of the interviews with the 6 grassroots permaculture projects and these will be found through the Permaculture CoLab Newsletter and on the Learn website:

CoLab Podcast

resources created

The CoLab Podcast webpage

contact links

learn@perma.earth

Communications, Outreach and Engagement

The Communications, Outreach and Engagement project is quite broad and wide-reaching.

It has several aims;

To enhance communication within the CoLab and associated networks. To connect individuals and organizations. To try to create a sense of belonging.
To do engagement research into network weaving practices and processes, from the local level to the international level.
Focusing on network weaving, in particular offering cross-network training and knowledge sharing events.
To do outreach work from the CoLab to the wider permaculture audience. This will bring attention to the work we are doing in the CoLab and the resources we offer.
To prototype bringing in national and regional networks in order to support the CoLab and the wider permaculture movement. Aiming to bridge projects across bioregions through resources and cross-community engagement.

Funded with 21, 000 GBP through next steps

2025 communications officer role was added to the team, increasing the budget by £3400

STATUS : complete

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Team

Kate Swatridge – research, outreach
Charlie Wilson – comms, copywriting, reporting officer
Hans Ryding – research, outreach
Aimee Fenech – training & supporting, outreach
Siobhan Vida Ashmole – June 2025 and onward, communication strategist

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Area

Network weaving, Diversity, participation and engagement, Next Steps project

objectives 2023

Objective 1: Identify our audiences and prioritize audiences for the first part of the work as a prototype. Until August.

Objective 2: Put together a persona/s for the identified prioritized audiences. Until end of October.

Objective 3: Collate information from around the colab about services, circles and projects in order to update the website – to be used as a basis for the outreach package – ongoing work until end of year.

Objective 4: Collate information about current outreach. Until end of year.

Objective 5: Collate feedback and consent from relevant teams on updates to the website pages, including circle pages, services, resources and onboarding. Until the end of the project.

Objective 6: Writing monthly newsletters. Releasing new and edited webpages (projects, services, resources, etc.), on a half yearly basis.

OUTCOMEs 2023

Objective 1: This was completed. A taxonomy was created.

Objective 2: We identified several personas and which were the most important to target. Persona pages have been created on the website speaking to each persona with a different “voice” and offering them different links. These need to be reviewed and finalised.

Objective 3: A major overhaul of the website has been completed. This took a major part of our time and budget for the year. It was realized that the website was going to be a major tool for outreach work and that it needed a lot of work done on it. This work will continue in the second year of the project but to a lesser degree. Services pages have been added. A resources page has been added. The circle pages are up to date. The projects pages have all been updated, with new projects added.

Objective 4: I am not sure that this objective was met. It will be added to Year 2 objectives.

Objective 5: Consent was obtained and updates were given from teams. This was sometimes a difficult task with a lot of chasing up needed.

Objective 6: The monthly newsletters were all completed and sent out on time. Many new web pages have been released. Some of them will be added to the resources tab below.

objectives 2024

Objective 1: Enhance communication within the (CoLab) network and externally to connect individuals and organisations.

1a. Writing monthly newsletters.

1b. Releasing new and edited webpages (projects, services, resources, etc.), on a half yearly basis.

1c. Add adhoc events and job openings as request in #colab-communications-engagement.

1d. Quarterly roundup of NS project updates.

1e. Representation in the General Circle monthly meetings (good for weaving).

1f. Video to introduce CoLab.

Objective 2: Engagement research into network weaving practices and processes across from local to international – focusing on pinpointing needs.

2a. Picture forming – What is the objective of this exercise? – Who is engaging (with CoLab) and how are they engaging (from inside / outside). How and what are we measuring? How do non-engagers (with CoLab) engage with one another and with resources (more generally) (so that we can work out how to help them engage with CoLab resources). What are the needs of different users? Output useful to this team and others.

2b. Plan work according to outcomes of picture forming and needs and according to budget allocation.

Objective 3: Outreach work from CoLab to the wider permaculture audience.

3a. Review persona work from year 1.

3b. Collate information from around the colab about services, circles and projects in order to update the website – to be used as a basis for the outreach package – ongoing work.

3c. Collate information about current outreach.

3d. Collate feedback and consent from relevant teams on updates to the website pages, including circle pages, services, resources and onboarding.

3e. Finish work on the website started last year (review and implement).

3f. Write outreach pieces to be published in permaculture magazines / social media and network websites & mailing lists. (what’s our aim? Increase membership, join mailing list, or increase engagement with resources).

3g.Mail out to target organisations by persona type. (collate email list, draft copy of email, possibly translate to eg. Spanish).

3h. Publish and curate resources from NS and other working groups artefacts.

3i. Set up Outreach Database (and use for prioritising, categorising, tracking etc).

Objective 4: Prototyping to bring in national and regional/other networks to support the wider permaculture movements & the CoLab

4a. Outreach prototype with Nordic permaculture (capped budget as per slack convo about this at 22 hours).

4b. Outreach meetings with external community network eg. EUPN.

Objective 5: Network weaving and building on the work started with capacity plus in particular cross network training and knowledge sharing events.

5a. Training to CoLab members who wish to represent CoLab / promote services.

5b. Representation in the General Circle monthly meetings (good for weaving).

Outcomes 2024

Objective 1: Enhance communication within the (CoLab) network and externally to connect individuals and organisations.

1a. The monthly newsletters have been published every month, on time. It has new sections promoting diversity, and both an engagement and events section.

1b. There are new “About permaculture pages” that have been added to the website. There are web pages now for Learn services, Funding services, and Digital services. The project pages were updated in September and will be updated again in December. A page of downloadable resources has been added to the website. A CoLab blog page has been added. Other web pages receive reviews and updates when needed.

1c. These are included on the website, and now also on the newsletter.

1d. These have been completed and published in a timely manner. The Q4 roundup will be produced in December.

1e. Charlie attended General Circle meetings each month.

1f. This has been completed. There were contributions from several CoLab members. Charlie did a lot of recording and Hans did the editing.

Objective 2. Research ‘engagement with network weaving practices and processes’ from local to international, focusing on pinpointing needs. –

2a. A quick picture-forming exercise revealed that for this objective, we want to find good ways to reach permaculture people and projects on the ground so that we share the wealth of resources, events and services offered by the International Permaculture CoLab. We designed and published a survey to find out how permaculturists communicate. Analysis of responses is in progress, with a report coming soon.

Objective 3: Outreach work from CoLab to the wider permaculture audience.

3a. This has been completed. The persona pages are active on the CoLab website and will be used for outreach work when sending emails etc.

3b. This work is done on an ongoing basis.

3c. A document reporting the current situation was collated and subsequently a marketing strategy document was produced and published.

3d. This work has been done and is ongoing.

3e. This has been completed.

3f. This has been started. We are in communication with Permaculture magazine and plan to produce articles next year. We are also surveying CoLab members about which platforms they use.

3g. This has been done. We sent an email to permaculture associations in Europe and Australia. So far there was no response.

3h. This work is being done and is ongoing.

3i. Initial version has been created, further updates are planned.

Objective 4: Prototyping to bring in national and regional/other networks to support the wider permaculture movements & the CoLab

4a: Contact was made and the results were collected as a case study, however the outreach was not successful in getting any new customers or members. Primarily because we overestimated how developed the organisations were. Outreach with EUPN was very successful and now we have a relationship going between Digital Circle and EUPN.

4b: Participated in skillshare sessions on behalf of Pemaculture CoLab in a session about digital permaculture organised by EUPN – we are getting better at cross collaboration since then.

Objective 5: Network weaving and building on the work started with capacity plus in particular cross network training and knowledge sharing events.

5a: We have been designing training for CoLab members who wish to represent CoLab in their other networks. To be delivered in Year 3 (CoLab Champions).

5b: This has been ongoing with positive feedback from other circles to the work done within this project.

objectives 2025

Objective 1: Communication strategy development and implementation (including recruit a communications strategist)

1a. Recruitment of a communication strategist.

1b. Development of a communication strategy for the CoLab – includes onboarding.

1c. An implementation plan and actions within the strategy.

Objective 2: Enhance communication within the (CoLab) network and externally to connect individuals and organisations (including a website review – for maintenance of website content post-2025)

2a. E-mails and slack posts to keep Next Steps members updated – including quarterly updates.

2b. Review of website content for post-2025 by October 2025
Checking in that people have access and are offered training by the Digital Circle to update their own project pages.

2c. Keep the project pages updated – so that they can be used to promote the project to a potential funder in the future.

2d. The events page. We need more events to increase engagement. As a prep work – update the aligned network page. Email out to allied networks to invite / prompt them to submit events.

Write a monthly “submit your public events here” message on Slack (hand over to an active team member when unavailable).

Objective 3: Bring attention to the work and wealth of resources available for the wider permaculture movement from the CoLab

3a. Focus on promoting the existing assets on the Downloadable Resources page and on getting more people to download them. We need to improve the names & descriptions of the resources and to add a monthly featured resource on the CoLab newsletter and LinkedIn.

3b. Social media campaigns – make them more relevant to CoLab work and permaculture when possible. Currently existing social media campaigns are: promoting the CoLab web pages, a climate action campaign, a diversity campaign, significant dates, and sharing newsletter items.

3c. Monthly newsletters. Newsletter archive page updated.

3d. Outreach to external parties. Review our outreach efforts from last year, such as reaching out to Permaculture magazine and decide which to finish and continue.

Objective 4: Cross network training and knowledge sharing events (CoLab Champions)

4a. Review the design document prepared in 2024 and update and improve it as necessary.

4b. Schedule and do the training for the new CoLab champions.

Outcomes 2025

Objective 1: Communication strategy development and implementation (including recruit a communications strategist)

1a. Finished. The role was advertised on various outreach channels. There were two applicants. One of which was interviewed. After a discussion within the team: Vida Ashmole was hired as the communications strategist. The deciding factor was her extensive previous experience both with marketing strategy and within the CoLab.

1b. Ongoing. A first version of the communication has been published containing: LinkedIn Strategy, YouTube Strategy, Newsletter, Co-Marketing Partnerships, PR Campaign, Microenterprises Services, Membership, AI Strategy, Internal Partnerships, Branding, Best Practices and Maintenance.

1c. Ongoing.

Objective 2: Enhance communication within the (CoLab) network and externally to connect individuals and organisations

2a. Ongoing. All quarterly updates have been sent out in a timely manner.

2b. Ongoing. We have reviewed the funding circle pages, and created new drafts. Further work is pending more information and feedback from the funding circle. All teams have been given access to update their project pages on the perma.earth website.

2c. Ongoing. Project pages are currently being updated.

2d. The Allied Network page has been updated. An email and Slack message has been sent out to Allied Partners to encourage them to post their events. Events from external sources have been added to the Events page to fill it up and make it look more appealing. A monthly message needs to be sent out on Slack to remind people to use the Events page, so far this has not been done.

Objective 3: Bring attention to the work and wealth of resources available for the wider permaculture movement from the CoLab

3a. The Downloadable Resources page has been thoroughly updated. A “Resource of the month” has been added to the newsletter and to the LinkedIn.

3b. All of the content for the current social media campaigns has been created. They are being scheduled on LinkedIn. The comms strategist may add some new campaigns.

3c. The monthly CoLab newsletter has been released each month in a timely manner. It includes content from the CoLab and our allied network. It includes a diversity and decolonization piece and a resource of the month. It also includes events and engagement opportunities.

3d. Ongoing. We intend to write an article for the autumn issue of Permaculture Magazine, due on Aug 15^th.

Objectve 4: Cross network training and knowledge sharing events (CoLab Champions)

4a. Finished. Document has been reviewed and updated. Possibly will be updated further following the finished training to reflect learnings etc. from there.

4b. Finished. A CoLab Champions training was completed on 6^th of May with a number of participants, who are now officially CoLab champions (Yay!)

Final Update

We had various threads of work for this team, from a maintenance perspective we are the team that keeps up the CoLab website, blog, social media and newsletter going as an ongoing body of work. This year we also included work on a new diversity page. We have also teamed up with the Funding Circle to produce communication assets such as a easily understood writing, a 3 page overview/ profile, a pitch deck and content for a page on the website; which can be used to communicate to funders. We also worked successfully to increase our external organisational partnerships and as a result we have representation of the CoLab in various networks including the Permaculture in Europe, the IPC Council and the EuPN. With other networks such as the GRC, the Fito Network we were able to set up event promotion.

We have started working on materials for the CoLab members to participate in the outreach at different levels depending on personal capacity, contributing towards inner confidence to recommend and speak about the CoLab and share CoLab resources into their networks.