Permaculture Retreat –Dhanushka’s Dream

Dhanushka is one of the  Kelani Nadee Yathrees (Traveler). As a post journey project Dhanushka was having a dream of turning an abandon land into an eco-friendly eco system. ECO-V encouraged him to create a permaculture garden where he can use it as an educational centre too. It was a dream for Dhanushka since then as he didn’t have a plan or money to do that. Thanks to volunteerism, Jackie , a volunteer from Journeys for Climate Justice (JCJ our partner in Australia) made a beautiful blue print using her experience in woofing and permaculture activities at CERES (http://www.ceres.org.au/) in Australia. Thanks to some funds we had for supporting KNY post projects, we could hire a van to go to Udawalawa to Dhanushka’s area which is a 4 hour drive from Colombo. There were 6 volunteers from Colombo.  Dhanushka’s grand parents made us delicious breakfast and lunch using the harvest from their home garden. Dhanushka was able to invite very energetic 16 youngsters who were anxiously waiting for us to arrive.

What a day! We all shared the labour and did shramadana  work and cleaned the ground, got rid of invasive plants, trimmed some branches, made a seating area for youngsters, started composting, etc. Within 4 hours it was ready for next step to have some vegetable beds, need to have a toilet and a small kitchenette to start living there.  We even planned for a tree house, and a deck to the small lake which is situated inside his land. Then our volunteers can go and start developing it as permaculture retreat and can enjoy Nature watching too. We saw lot of butterflies, birds, lizards and even snakes! What a beauty…..we all have a dream now, a dream to live with Nature in harmony and train youngster as Eco friendly volunteers!