Sustainability Study Tour – Thailand
| March 8, 2010 | to | March 17, 2010 |
Thailand
Instructor: Peggy Reents and Jo Jandai
Tuition: $475 US/person, $900 US/couple
A personal study trip exchanging and staying
with leaders in the sustainability movement in Thailand including a grassroots look at organic
farming, earthen building, fair trade, traditional medicine, community
empowerment, and self-reliance.
Northeastern to Northern Thailand Trip: March 8-17, 2010
Through our work in earthen building, organic farming, and community living we
have established strong relationships with various groups at the forefront of
this movement in Thailand. Each group is diverse in its target and
implementation, yet all hold a common vision of empowering people to become
self-reliant and sustainable. We invite you to come to learn from each of them
by joining us on this study tour.
In a period of 12 days we will visit several communities starting in the
agricultural northeastern region to the mountainous northern region of Thailand. Visit with members of a fair trade organic
farmers’ cooperative, community-based herbal medicine facility, intentional
communities from small to large scale, leaders in the fast growing earthen
building movement, Buddhist self-reliant community based on “meritism”,
founders of the earthen village, family permaculture farm hosting natural
medicine trainings, and Pun Pun organic farm, sustainable living learning
center and seed center.
In this unique event you will get a chance to exchange personally with leaders
in the sustainability movement at a grassroots level that would be otherwise
hard to access. Peggy Reents and Jo Jandai have both worked with these groups
in supporting their development and can open access to interested folks by
providing relationships and full translation. Come and learn together with us
from their wisdom, experience and help support their work while also just
having a really great time and experiencing Thailand!
We will:
Stay at Jo Jandai’s organic family farm and stay in an earthen
house in the rice fields, where their village organic farmer’s group was
started, visit with neighboring organic farms, visit their established
integrated farms and hear their stories
Visit an emerging intentional sustainable community called “Garden of Dhamma” who hosts natural health trainings, and
organic farming trainings helping farmers to make the transition to
organic
Exchange with members probably the most self-reliant community in Thailand, the “Santi Asok”. The Asok is a network
of Buddhist, organic farmers who believe in work as meditation and the
ideology of “meritism” instead of capitalism or socialism. Experience a
large-scale community of many hundred people as we visit the Ubon
Ratchathani Asok and see how they produce all the organic produce and food
they eat as well as products to sell, home school their children, and work
to escape materialism and consumer culture
Travel with us to “Mun Yeun” (or sustainable community in English)
which consists of villagers who have lost their land and suffered the
adverse effects of large-scale dam projects, who now seek to show a more
ecological form of development. They decided they wanted to show the
public what villager-based development could look. In 2002 they created
Mun Yeun community with homes built of earth and other local materials,
and food production from organic techniques along with local forest
foraging
Travel to northern Thailand and stay at Mae Taeng district, an hour
north of Chiang Mai at Peggy and Jo’s project, “Pun Pun” (Thousand
Varieties) organic farm, sustainable living learning center, and seed
center. Pun Pun is a small community of Thais and a couple international
people, where we try to be a model for experimentation in sustainable
living techniques and run a seed center for the conservation of rare and
indigenous varieties. We practice organic farming techniques and are
earthen builders as well. Next door to Pun Pun is “Panya Project”, an
experimental permaculture center and “You Sabaii” hosting Thai cooking
courses, a small earthen guesthouse, coffeeshop and partners in many of
Pun Pun’s projects/trainings
Visit the Women’s International Partnership for Peace and Justice
located in Mae Rim, a local, spiritual based feminist organization working
to support grassroots women’s activism in Thailand and the Asian region. Founded in
2002, IWP leads workshops, retreats and training courses which share in
common the integration of feminism, social action and spirituality for
sustainability and transformation at the personal, community and society
levels
Visit “Suan Sai Lom Joy”, a family farm and example of a truly
villager-based permaculture model. Listen to this family’s story of
converting their land into a flourishing, bio-diverse, canal and coconut
based ecosystem and experience their natural healing techniques at their
natural healing center on the farm
Hosts
Jon Jandai, and Peggy Reents.
Living situation
Simple accommodation will be provided along with way at every place, primarily
earthen or bamboo guesthouses. Bedding will be provided but if you need
anything special or more bedding than a thin futon mat, you should bring it
yourself.
Meals will be shared and eaten with villagers or in communities. Vegetarian and
fish options will be available and in organic farms we will eat as much local
organic produce as possible.
Bathing will be provided mostly with a cool bucket shower or at times a dip in
the pond.
Fee
Northeastern to Northern Trip:
$475 US/person, $900 US/couple. Fee includes all food, accommodation,
translation, organization, and all transportation from Yasothorn town at the
beginning of the trip to Chiang Mai at the end. You will be responsible for
providing your own transportation to Yasothorn town and from Chiang Mai city.
Proceeds go towards supporting villagers projects we will visit and towards
support Pun Pun community to grow and continue with our work.
Registration
1) Email Peggy Reents at pareents@yahoo.com
and please specify whether you are registering for the Northern Trip or
Northeastern to Northern Trip.
2) Once you have been in contact with us, a $150 US non-refundable deposit is
due to secure your spot. You can send this deposit by check addressed to:
Peggy Reents
Re: Sustainability Study Trip
3405 El Caminito
Loveland, CO 80537 USA
3) The remainder of your contribution will be expected on the first day of the
study trip in US dollars or Thai baht.
For more information contact pareents@yahoo.com
Please visit our website at www.punpunthailand.org for more
information on us and our projects.
