African Landless Permaculturist Project: Ikhwelo Healers Collective
Team
Siobhan Vida Ashmole, Dr Fikile Marbel Vilakazi-Alberts (PhD), Leonora Alberts-Vilakazi, Ntsikelelo Colossa
Reporting Officer: Siobhan Vida Ashmole
Area
Grassroots permaculture project, Emergent festival, Next Steps project, Diversity, participation and engagement
Objectives
Conduct field and desk research on alternative land-access options in South Africa for landless permaculturists with limited capital and credit. In months 1-4, we’ll investigate opportunities, processes, costs, and relevant laws, learning from successful low-capital permaculturists and land gatekeepers.
Compare these options with SADC countries for regional fit (Month 4).
Publish a guide on creative land access for permaculture, disseminate to grassroots groups in permaculture, traditional healing, agroecology, and food sovereignty, initially in English and one indigenous language, potential future translations/videos.(Month 4-5)
Develop a framework from our research to address land access and use in Southern Africa, offering insights for the rest of Africa, the Global South, and landless permaculturists globally. This framework and our findings will be shared with the CoLab to inspire and enable similar regional initiatives. (Month 6)
outcomes 2024
Our team has successfully completed what we envision as the first phase of our research into creative land access strategies for low-capital African Permaculturists. We have published two artifacts:
Sowing Seeds Without Soil – Navigating Land Access for African Permaculturists v1.0
A 62 page guide detailing the research process, findings, and advice for African permaculturists wanting to access land without high capital costs. This guide contains stories of permaculture projects and indigenous farmers operating on tribal land, in land trusts, on land from redistribution programmes; as well as challenges especially around gender when accessing land. Focused on SADC for now but with plans to expand into other regions in Africa.
Grassroots Land Access Research Draft Framework – A 1 page infographic outlining our research approach for others to replicate in other regions or with other focus areas. This would be likely applicable in other African regions and might find relevance in other Global South contexts, and with adaption it may be useful to researchers in the Global North interested in alternative land-access and grassroots initiatives.
Members of the CoLab can find these artefacts in Slack, and anyone else interested in reading them or participating in future research can email us on ikhwelohealerscollective@gmail.com
We will also publish these on ikhwelohealerscollective.africa – if you are an African healer/ permaculturist please join us here to connect to our larger work.
resources created
Sowing Seeds Without Soil – Navigating Land Access for African Permaculturists
62 page document detailing the research process, findings, and advice for African permaculturists wanting to access land without high capital costs.
Grassroots Land Access Research Draft Framework – A 1 page infographic outlining our research approach for others to replicate