Kick Starter staff picks new project by Permaculture Research Institute of Barbados

 by Lorraine Ciarallo

The Permaculture Research Institute (CPRI) of Barbados has been in the making since 2012 and I am proud to finally announce that our project has started.

A couple days ago CPRI launched its KickStarter crowdfunding video campaign which I would like to share with you. The purpose of our project is to set up a permaculture school in Barbados to teach, educate and demonstrate through the principles of permaculture how to grow food, repair landscapes & build community. Permaculture is a design science, inspired by nature and guided by ethics. Its purpose is to meet the needs of humanity while benefiting the environment. To this end, it empowers individuals, local communities and the larger public to build sustainable & environmentally friendly:

• Food and Land Systems
• Social and community systems
• Shelter and home systems
• Livelihood and business systems

I hope you will take the time to watch the video. If this campaign is successful, it will help ensure the life of this project, a project which I am committed to for the next 3 years. It is super exciting for me to share it with you and I hope, you find it exciting too! 

Please watch this 3 minute video before reading further. (Above or at Kickstarter here)

Now…can you see why I am excited? Would you like to help me roll out this amazing campaign? If so, I would be indebted to you if you could do the following:

1. Claim a reward by donating Any amount

NOTE 1:
Pledges can be as low as $1.00 Canadian and the quantum of your pledge will NOT be displayed, just your name as a “backer”.

NOTE 2:

Should you decide to pledge choosing a donate tab of your choice, it will prompt you to sign in with your Facebook account, or sign up with KickStarter. Please take the time to complete this important short step that is secured by KickStarter, thank you.

2. Share this campaign with your family members and friends, and ask them to do the same.

3. Post and share the campaign on your Facebook page, twitter and with others you know who would love to help us reach our goal. Thank you so much for your help!

For your convenience, the following is a short version that you can use to email family and friends and/or post on social media outlets.

“A Crowdfunding community initiative that I personally support has been started to assist in launching the Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute of Barbados. Through the support of many people, rather than relying solely on, and chasing grants, we kindly ask you to watch this 3 minute video. Should you decide to support this project on KickStarter, pledges can be as low as $ 1.00 CDN and the quantum of your pledge is NOT displayed, just your name as a “backer”. By choosing a donate tab, it will prompt you to sign in with FB, or sign in with KickStarter. Please complete this important step secured by KickStarter. Thank you. 

Here is the link to the 3 minute video https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413679591/caribbean-permaculture-research-institute-of-barba “.

Thank you for your consideration and cooperation.

Help CPRI with its goals to empower people to green Barbados with food gardens everywhere on the island!

God bless!

Lorraine Ciarallo
Site Manager, Designer and Consultant
Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute (CPRI) of Barbados
Graeme Hall, Christ Church

Arab-Israeli Conflict or Jewish-Muslim Conflict? Whatever it is, can it be solved?

A Barbadian engineer and author proposes some answers
Our blogging friend Grenville Phillips II is a prolific writer and what I’ll call an “activist structural engineer” in the best sense of the term. Whether the subject is the proper installation of rebar when building a home, or politics or religion – he looks at all the factors, identifies the problems, researches and then methodically builds his solutions.  Read anything at his Weighed in the Balance blog and you’ll see proof of that.

But Grenville is also a man with a sense of history and humanity – he’s not just a numbers guy. I think it is the combination of structural engineer, historian and teacher with genuine concern for humanity that makes everything he writes so worthwhile. That, and his talent for being able to present his ideas clearly and simply enough to be understood.

Writing under his nom de plume Walter Phillips, he has published two books…

Solving The Arab-Israeli Conflict, (2009) subtitled “A practical way forward that allows both sides to negotiate a solution in good-faith”and

Brothers Kept Apart (2008) “Compelling and explicit evidence that exposes the myths that have unnecessarily divided Christians and Muslims for the past 1,300 years.”

Time to buy Phillips’ latest book!
For some reason I missed Grenville’s blog post Solving the Arab-Israeli Conflict but after recently coming across it and reading the wonderful discussions he provoked from around the world, I think I have to purchase and read his latest book.

Damn, I hate it when Grenville makes an argument in such a compelling manner that I have to rethink my own perspective! (Just kidding – that’s what I love about life, learning and growing.) - Marcus

PS: If Grenville doesn’t mind, I think we’ll put his blog and books on our banner list.

We Were Promised Cricket World Cup Accounting Would Be Delivered NOW. (Did We Stupid Bajans Really Believe That Promise?)

The financial and public relations disaster called Cricket World Cup has come and gone – and with it hundreds of millions of tax dollars that will see our grandchildren still working to pay off the debt decades from now.  We were promised an accounting.

The time we were promised to have that accounting is now.  Barbados Underground has the story, but don’t hold your breath…

Prime Minister Owen Arthur promised years ago that we would have a “full accounting” of the GEMS Hotels expenditures and that has yet to arrive.

As Owen Arthur and company have proven time and time again, we stupid Bajans will believe anything.