Swadeshi in
Southwestern Colorado
Tom Riesing
Oakhaven Permaculture
Center, in South-
western Colorado's LaPlata County, will host
"Swadeshi on the Green: A Festival of Local
Self-Sufficiency," Sunday, July 11th. Planned
as an annual celebration of local culture and
production, the event will feature food and
music, but the real focus will be a series of
workshops to help people learn how to keep
bees; make beer, bread, cheese, candles and
soap; convert from diesel to bio-diesel; find
native herbs, install wind or solar power; and
spin and weave wool. Carried into practice and
into livelihoods, all these activities would
eventually allow area residents to become
much less dependent on the U.S. and global
economies. No one will do all of these things,
but all will do some things they enjoy and are
good at doing. This growing diversity of useful
work will provide many new opportunities for
trading and can help establish a real local
economy for Southwestern Colorado and the
larger Four Corners bioregion. With the end of
cheap oil bearing down on us by 2010, local
self-sufficiency is rapidly becoming the
foundation for survival.
Swadeshi is a Hindi word that
Gandhi used
to mean "local self-sufficiency." The basic
ideas of swadeshi are: Local economy,
national and communal spirit, encouraging
people to help each other, building on local |
resources and skills, replicating and
perpetuat-
ing skills and production. Vandana Shiva says,
"Swadeshi for Gandhi was a positive concept
based on building on what a community has in
terms of resources, skills, and institutions, and
transforming them where they were inadequate.
Imposed resources, institutions, and structures
leave a people unfree and are non-sustainable.
Swadeshi for Gandhi was central to the
creation of peace, freedom, and sustainable
development."
Oakhaven's mission is to help
Four Comers
residents understand the value of a strong local
economy and of living sustainably. We intend
to establish a learning community by providing
classes and demonstration sites at Oakhaven, in
Durango, and in LaPlata County, and by
applying Permaculture Ethics and Design
principles to all aspects of daily living. Our
motto is "Think, Grow, Eat & Buy Locally," a
variation on Gandhi's "buy local, be proud of
local, support local, uphold and live local," his
definition of Swadeshi.
The workshops at the Swadeshi
mid-summer
festival are a way to demonstrate what can be
done by individuals and small groups,
beginning now. The festival will celebrate the
possibility of achieving Swadeshi, and will be a
fun way of sharing our goals with the commu-
nity. But Swadeshi cannot be achieved in one |
|
afternoon. Achieving real local
self-sufficiency
will require the coordinated efforts and
commitment of many people and organizations.
To this end, one of our five-year goals is to
establish and nurture
relationships and offer
joint programs with other organizations in the
Four Corners.
One such organization, The Bio-Diesel
group, which will have a demonstration vehicle
at the festival and will present a workshop, is
looking into what it would take to grow
safflowers, sunflowers, soybeans, etc., locally
so that, like the farmers of old who grew corn
to feed the horses that plowed their fields, we
can be growing the fuel to keep our vehicles
running.
In permaculture we are reminded that
"it's
the connections that matter" and the connec-
tions to community through Oakhaven's board
members are an important way that the
Permaculture Center works toward its mission
and goals. "Swadeshi on the Green: A Festival
of Local Self-sufficiency" will bring all of this
power together for fun, music, and food,
demonstrating through its workshops and
displays how the community can work together
to provide for itself.
Tom Riesing, a former investment banker,
with his partner Christie Berven, a retired
elementary school teacher, operates Oakhaven
Permaculture Center. They designed their own
home near Hesperus, Colorado and garden
extensively throughout the year. |