Integration Through Permaculture

Hello to all of you supporters of Sporos across the world!

Spring is here at last and this means loads of buzzing around preparing for the new growing season. Our seedlings are growing like crazy in our greenhouse have now been planted and they happily greet the Mediterranean sun every morning. Our team member Shahzaib has been a planting champion.

Earlier in April we started a new project called Stop The Burn, the project that we won two Green Awards for. This project focuses more on climate change action and we are beyond excited to announce that we have completed almost the first phase. We focus on educating olive tree growers about the negative consequences of burning the prunings from their trees. Every year thousands of tonnes of olive prunings are burned, which has a very negative impact on the environment. This old practice causes serious air pollution through the release of greenhouse gases, which accelerate climate change. We also emphasize that soil fertility is also considerably decreased which has a serious negative impact on future tree health and biodiversity destruction.

Our program aims to promote the use of olive wood chippers instead of the burning malpractice and as part of the program we offer free services of wood chipping with our champion wood chipper to interested farmers. We hope to continue raising awareness with the olive growers and also educate the public about this very harmful practice since Lesvos is covered with 11 million olive trees!

We have also launched a program with 2 primary schools on the island, helping them with knowledge and expertise on the construction of their school gardens and the teaching of STEM classes on aeroponics.  

May is also set for a powerful start as we are gearing up for our Athens project in collaboration with OHF Community Centre in Athens. An exciting new project involving urban permaculture and refugee education. 

In our international news, we are proud to announce that our Managing Director Konstantinos was appointed the president of the Board of Directors of the Permaculture for Refugees organisation which was established recently in Queensland, Australia. The establishment came as a result of the need for an umbrella organisation which can coordinate the efforts of many individuals, projects and partners around the globe working to promote permaculture and its uses to serve the needs of refugees.

Finally, Sporos was represented in the Australian Permaculture Convergence which took place in April on South Australia. It was a great opportunity to promote our work in the Permaculture for Refugees (P4R) network to an international crowd in Australia, the birthplace of permaculture.

Every year in Spring we get reborn with mother Earth and we feel excited for all the new beginnings, new projects and new synergies. This year in winter we sowed a lot of seeds, applied for grants and formed new collaborations with the aim to maximize our impact. Biggest part of who we are and our successful work would not have been possible without you. We feel so much gratitude for all your generosity and support. We love getting messages from our supporters so please do get in touch through our social media channels with what this Spring means to you and any new plants that have sprung on your window seals, balconies or gardens.