Butambala Permaculture Learning Center

SPADES Community is excited to announce the winner of our November 1st, 2021 Charitable Award, the Butambala Permaculture Learning Center located in Uganda.

The organization was created by Tebandeke Ali, and it has already made a big difference in people’s lives. Mr. Ali states, “These are teaching gardens.  We are inspired to give our fellow Ugandans the power and security of growing their own food and stewarding their own soil. We believe the survival of the human species and many others are dependent on our ability to repair our relationship with the land.”

They offer training programs in permaculture, including hosting exchange visitors from other countries. Students learn not just how to grow food, or prepare the land and soil, they also gain knowledge about indigenous food varieties, cross-cultural recipes, and the experience of life on a farm.

Here is Mr. Ali himself in the following video.

To donate to their efforts, please visit the GoFundMe page here.

You can follow the Butambala Permaculture Learning Center here on FB.

 The SPADES Community recognizes that permaculture is very important to long-term sustainability, but not everyone is familiar with what it means. Permaculture is an agricultural system that follows the natural cycle of our ecological system, to produce agricultural goods, in a way that agricultural productivity, as well as sustainability, is maintained. Permaculture has been defined as: 

“A philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single project system.”

Bill Mollison

Benefits of permaculture include:

• Reducing Costs: Using all the natural components of the ecosystem like composting the waste into useful organic matter and manure, you save up a lot of money which you would otherwise be spending on conventional farming.
• Less Waste: In Permaculture, the waste products are recycled and manured back to the earth in the form of compost. Once you start following this practice, the waste material is later used as a natural fertilizer. There is less waste because all the present resources are optimally utilized.
• Chemical Resistance:  Permaculture uses natural fertilizers and mulch for farming and gardening. This helps you in resisting your produce from being exposed to the harmful chemicals that are used in pesticides. The agricultural system followed, in Permaculture, will let the natural ecosystem predators perform the functions of the pesticides for you.
• Less Pollution: If you are using the most natural way of agricultural cultivation, then there is no way you can increase the pollution. In fact, the zone in which Permaculture is practiced will be pollution free.
• Develops Community Values: When you apply the Permaculture system you automatically develop values like creating pollution, helping your fellow beings, and using only how much you need.
• Diversity: One can produce a diverse range of produce in his/her land. Permaculture brings about the sense of self-reliance, as one can grow whatever he needs and consume it. Also, if there is some surplus, then, there are ways of preserving them and using them later.
• Promotes Green Living: In Permaculture, one uses natural fertilizers, natural pesticides, and freshwater reserves. It undoubtedly promotes green living of the backyard style.