Permaculture Teacher Training
with Focus on Refugees
@ Permaculture Barcelona Hub (Catalunya, Spain)
January 24 - 29, 2027
Where the content and teaching of permaculture coincide harmoniously with the ethics
The Permaculture Teacher Training with Focus on Refugees (PTT4R) is an international course offered in English, certified by the Permaculture Association of Britain, and organised by 12P Permaculture Design. The course is available to PDC holders from any country.
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Event Date:
24/01/2027
to
29/01/2027
Registration End Date:
24/01/2027
Event Location:
Permaculture Barcelona Hub
Event Type:
In Person
The invasion of the Ukraine and the hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking asylum in the European Union has focused attention on the issue of mass migration. There is now a much greater opportunity to support displaced people by teaching and training refugees to teach and train each other. As P4R states, “Our aim is to support refugees in transforming the places where they live —be these refugee camps or communities in receiving countries — into productive permaculture-designed communities, and ultimately to equip them for integration into society for the collective benefit of all.” Following P4R’s definition, we use the term ‘refugee’ “interchangeably with asylum seekers, forced migrants, internally displaced peoples (IDPs), refugees and stateless person.”
Join us for an intensive training that will provide you with an invaluable toolkit to use in the classroom, as well as life in general. The training was designed by Rosemary and draws on her four decades of permaculture teaching experience. Whether you are already a teacher, or thinking of becoming one, the PTT4R makes teaching a transformative and fun exchange. Classrooms (indoor and outdoor) will never be the same again!
Why this training?
The PTT is an international training program in English, designed by permaculture educator pioneer Rosemary Morrow, which empowers you to:
- Build teaching confidence and overcome fears of public speaking or facilitation
- Transform classrooms into dynamic, participatory learning spaces
- Gain hands-on experience for teaching online and in person
- Design and deliver impactful courses that create real change in your students’ lives
- Join a global community of supportive, like-minded teachers
Whether you want to run full PDCs or smaller courses and workshops, this training will help you connect with your audience and teach with confidence and passion.
Where
PTT4R teacher Alfred Decker is thrilled to welcome you to the Permaculture Barcelona Hub located in the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona. Watch a video about the Hub on the right, and see some early photos of the Hub in the current process of renovation and read more by clicking HERE.
This course is for...
PDC holders in any of the following fields: teachers and students of architecture, landscape design, school/community gardeners, local government community development officers, ecology and other disciplines including geography, regenerative agriculture and agroforestry as well as permaculture design. If you’re looking to do any type of sustainability or permaculture education/communication, this is the course you’ve been waiting for!
You will learn how to:
- Design a short or a long course
- Develop clear course outcomes and ethics
- Adopt appropriate body behaviour and use nonviolent communication
- Prepare learning resources and use teaching aids effectively
- Organise classroom and learning environments
- Work with a broad range of people from different cultures and backgrounds
- Draw on strategies that promote thinking and integrate practical experience
- Deliver clear explanations and concepts
- Explain the structure and function of the Permaculture Design Course
- Give engaging digital presentations
- Debrief, appraise, and apply other teaching techniques
- Work collaboratively in groups
- Practice teaching in a safe, supportive community of peers
We require all students to have completed a PDC (anywhere in the world) before the course starting date. If you are unable to do this before the training but really want to attend, please contact us.
When
Usually the in-person course is offered over seven – eight days. However, more and more people are asking for a hybrid format, so that is what we created: 5 nights and 4+ days in-person at the Permaculture Barcelona Hub, and two online sessions (one before and one after).
In-person: January 24 – 29
Participants arrive on Sunday, January 24 at 17h and depart on Friday, January 29 at 11h after a final breakfast celebration.
Online:
Session 1 – January 13, 2027, 17:30h – 20:30h CET
Session 2 – February 10, 2027, 17:30h – 20:30h CET
Community
You will be part of an international community during this training. Previous participants testify to the value of learning and practicing in a supportive group; making global connections and even finding future teaching collaborators!
The PTT4R Facilitation Team
This will be our fifth PTT4R training together!
Alfred Decker
Alfred Decker is an award-winning permaculture designer; the Education Coordinator of Permaculture For Refugees; a certified educator with the Permaculture Association of Britain; a leading voice in Social Permaculture; and one of Europe’s innovative permaculture educators. His journey into ecological design began in 1998 when he completed his first Permaculture Design Course in California. Since then, Alfred has been involved with social movements and projects across many borders. He is the founder of the 12P Permaculture Design consultancy, Permacultura Barcelona and the Forest Gardens project at Can Masdeu ; is a co-founder of the Spanish Permaculture Academy ( Academia de Permacultura Íbera ); and was a member of the European Permaculture Teachers Partnership and the Permaculture Council of Europe . Alfred holds a post graduate diploma in sustainable architecture and renewable energy ( Centre for Alternative Technology ).
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After taking a PTT course with Rosemary Morrow in 2011, he undertook a two year mentorship and later co-facilitated six courses as her assistant, ultimately earning a Diploma in Permaculture Education & Community Development in 2013 through the Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute (Australia). Committed to furthering the PTT course that Rosemary developed in over four decades of teaching experience around the world, Alfred facilitated over 20 PTT courses as lead facilitator and co-edited all three versions of the PTT manual. Rosemary has asked him to organise the PTT trainings in Europe, and he has developed an online version of the course on the Permaculture Association of Britain’s online educational platform.
In 2024 Alfred joined the Global Council of Permaculture For Refugees. He is passionate about how permaculture can be useful to refugees and migrants, and how permaculture education can be designed for them as learners…and how they in turn can best share their valuable knowledge and experience with others.
In early 2026, Alfred founded the Permaculture Barcelona Hub, where the training will be based.
Sonita Mbah
Sonita Mbah is a passionate food grower, facilitator and Applied Permaculture Designer – Certified by German Permakultur Akademie. She has led Permaculture courses in Cameroon, Germany and Kenya. For over 10 years, she was the Administrator of Better World Cameroon and co-initiator of Bafut Ecovillage, an off-grid learning center North West of Cameroon. As Executive Secretary of the Global Ecovillage Network Africa, she brings regenerative community and social enterprise development to several African communities. Sonita received the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award by the Women and Gender Constituency for empowering women on the earthen cook stove technology and the One World Award for her work with the Global Ecovillage Network.
Habiba Youssef
Habiba holds a degree in Economics and Sustainable Development, and has worked in international development, focusing on the regenerative and sustainable use of natural resources for income generating activities aimed at the reduction of poverty in rural areas. She is the co-founder of La Bolina, an Andalusia-based association working on land regeneration, capacity and awareness building and socio-economical integration of migrants and refugees. Habiba is an expert in agroecology market gardens.
Yau Fan
Yau is a permaculture designer and facilitator. He did his first PDC in 2017 and afterwards took courses with Lesley Martin, Hugo Oliveira, Mirka Faya Hlavacova, Patricia Pereira, Geoff Lawton, Daniel Halsey, Gerard Ducerf, and Elaine Ingham. Since taking a teacher training with Alfred Decker, he has taught 5 PDCs and other permaculture courses for refugees in Brussels. Yau is in the process of designing a PDC for refugees together with Alfred Decker, Rosemary Morrow and the Permaculture for Refugees working group.
Guest Facilitators Online
Rosemary Morrow
Rosemary is known and loved worldwide as a permaculture teacher, practitioner, and activist. She has travelled the globe for four decades, often in countries shattered by war and disasters, sharing her passion for permaculture and social justice. Her belief is that access to useful knowledge is a basic human right.
Several years ago, Rosemary decided to focus on teacher training courses in order to have a “multiplier effect”, believing that the bottleneck keeping permaculture from growing more rapidly is not a shortage of curriculum and experience, but rather a shortage of competent permaculture teachers. So she created this training to give people the skills and confidence needed to take the big step from being a practitioner to becoming a teacher.
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Her pragmatic and effective approach working with and being led by local people has created community-scale permaculture projects and outcomes across a broad range of environments from drylands in Ethiopia, to the wet tropics of Vietnam. The knowledge and experience she brings to creating abundance, food security and successful sustainable farming models is unparalleled in permaculture education today. She is the author of the Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture, the Earth User’s Guide to Teaching Permaculture, The Family Seedsaving Book, and A Good Home Forever.
Starhawk
Starhawk (she/her) is the co-founder and executive director of Earth Activist Training. One of the foremost voices in Earth-based spirituality, Starhawk is an author, activist, and permaculture teacher and designer. Her 13 books include such beloved reads as The Spiral Dance, The Earth Path, and The Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk drew from 30 years of living collectively to write The Empowerment Manual, which is the basis for her social permaculture course, Empowering Collaborative Groups.
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Starhawk has been recognized by the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) as a leading figure in permaculture and has been awarded dual diplomas for excellence in education and permaculture site design. As a teacher of magical activism and permaculture education, Starhawk’s life work takes her across the globe. She currently lives part-time in San Francisco in a collective house with her partner and friends, and part-time in a little hut in the woods in Cazadero, California, where she practices permaculture in her extensive gardens and writes.
Fees
Included in Your Fees
• Delicious food during 5 nights / 4+ days in Barcelona, starting with an opening dinner and ending with a breakfast celebration
• Two online sessions of three hours each
• A teacher training certificate issued by the Permaculture Association of Britain (PAB)
• One-year PAB membership. If you are already a PAB member, you will be discounted the membership fee of €31.
• A pack of digital teaching resources
• Permanent access to the online materials and platform after training, Includes live class recordings, videos, text, and images
• Practical teaching experience
• Live calls with Rosemary Morrow & Starhawk
• Option to buy a printed copy of Rosemary’s PTT Manual at the cost of printing (free download HERE)
• A new generation of permaculture teachers and doers for you to join!
Note: accommodation and local transport are *not* included in the following prices. Once registered, we can organise local accommodation for you in shared or individual rooms, or you can make your own arrangements.
Your participation directly supports the creation and growth of the Permaculture Barcelona Hub — a permanent space for courses, skill-sharing, networking, and regenerative design in a vibrant part of Barcelona.
We offer a sliding scale for the PTT4R, and ask participants to offer what they can pay for this professional, certified training. Those who can afford to pay more on the higher end of the scale will help those who can only pay less.
The sliding scale recognises the differences in economic reality depending on what country a participant comes from, as well as their individual circumstances, so this is a practical way that people with more resources can act in solidarity.
Choose the option that best fits your circumstances:
€521 Standard Price (€490 for PAB members)
This price reflects the real cost of running the course. Choose this price if you cannot pay the Abundance price.
€671 Abundance Price (€640 for PAB members)
Please choose this price if you are able to afford it. By doing so you are supporting opportunities for low income students and refugees to participate in the course. Thank you!
€371 Resilient Price (€340 for PAB members)
You are welcome to choose this price if you have a low income or are unemployed, receive public assistance, do not have access to funds, etc. If you are able to offer more for this quality program, please go back and choose one of the other prices.
Payment Plan
You can choose to pay in two installments by paying a €200 deposit now and pay the rest in cash upon arrival to the training.
Scholarships
We also have some pay-what-you-can scholarships for members of marginalised communities and people of color working in environmental and social justice movements. That is part of our way of supporting reparations and of bringing in more diversity to our permaculture movement. If you are a member of a marginalised community, BIPOC or a refugee/migrant and interested in one of these scholarships, please fill in a scholarship application form HERE.
Refund Policy
If you need to cancel your place on the training, here is our policy:
30+ days before start of training: 75% Refund
15–29 days before start of training: 50% Refund
Less than 14 days before start of training: No Refund
Note about food: while we will try to cater to all diets, the Permaculture Barcelona Hub welcomes ethical omnivores and vegetarians, so the meals we share may not be appropriate for strict vegans.
Note about transport: we encourage participants to arrive to Barcelona by public transport whenever possible. There are fast trains from London, Paris and Berlin to Barcelona, as well as buses from anywhere in Europe. If it is not possible to arrive by public transport, we will encourage you to make a donation to a local permaculture-influenced regenerative tree planting project.
This teacher training is certified through the Permaculture Association of Britain
