Launch of Ancut Garden Oasis Project

Ancut Garden Oasis crowdfunding campaign

Ancut Garden Oasis is a locally-owned living & learning space, bound by permaculture ethics and Bali’s Tri Hita Karana philosophy: Harmony with spirit, harmony with others, and harmony with nature.

After Kadek graduated from Navdanya Earth University in 2015, Kadek and Feny were inspired to co-found Emas Hitam Indonesia (EHI) with the support of other young Indonesians in December 2015.

Since this time, the team have been actively contributing to food sovereignty and sustainability movements in Bali and across Indonesia. Our trainings include:

• Sekaroh, East Lombok (June-July 2016): EHI trained a group of 32 farmers struggling to grow a single crop of corn each year, teaching them how to regenerate their soil applying permaculture design principles.
• Karangasem, East Bali (Nov 2017): The EHI team delivered a customized workshop for 3 villages on nitrogen-fixation, the use of vetiver grass as erosion prevention, and how to create a sustainable business growing moringa oleifera.
• Malaka, Io Kufeu, West Timor (Aug 2017): EHI’s training introduced the concept of regenerative agriculture to 3 communities dealing with unsustainable farming practises.

In November 2017, we co-created the JAGA Indonesia Festival: Celebrating Agroecology and Seed Freedom– a free event for over 250 Indonesian farmers, students, government representatives and activists in Bali and Java. Kadek’s Navdanya University teachers came especially from India to share their practical workshops on agroecology, food sovereignty, liquid compost, and seed-saving.

We are a group of friends who share a similar vision of how we want to live our lives. We all come from different backgrounds and have had successful lives so far, however each one of felt that there was something missing. We found it when we connected with the land. Working together, we realised the impact that we can have by teaching people how to grow their own food and regenerate their land. So together with the local community, we created Ancut Garden Oasis. We believe we can have a positive impact in our world, by caring for people, our Planet and with the fair redistribution of our surplus. We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and we know that we cannot do it alone.

We know how to find regenerative solutions based on collaboration that are bound by the ethics and principles of permaculture. We want to design Ancut Garden Oasis (AGO) as a whole system, where each element and human being can achieve their highest purpose- trusting each other, and creating a community life that can be an example for others.

Our first goal is to create a dormitory space where local volunteers, international guests and workshop participants can stay and learn permaculture with us. Our dorm and site will also be ready to be used as an evacuation point, community kitchen and/or safe zone for any future natural disasters (since September last year, Emas Hitam has been involved in Agung Siaga’s relief efforts for Mt Agung’s eruptions, and recently the Lombok earthquakes through volunteering, donation sorting and logistics support).

Webpage with more details: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ancut-garden-oasis#/