My Blog

Kenyan interest in ecodome and permaculture March 18, 2011

Hi Dadamac team (past and present) and readers of my open letters at http://dadamac.posterous.com

Ecodome update - new interest

You may be interested in a message I have just come across on Flickr under this photo of the Eco-dome at Attachab. Attachab is in West Africa - in Nigeria, the comment has been sent by someone in East Africa - in Kenya. Attachab is the dream of John Dada - see Cicely's blog below on "dreams will come true". Part of John's vision for Attachb is that it should be a model programme sharing what it learns with others. It has no budget to do this, but at least, here on the Internet, this sharing of information is starting to happen in an informal way.

"Have a dream for a project in kenya 1.9 hectares land owned by my wife and i . we want to use this as a pilot using as many sustainable projects as possible ..i have lots of ideas and some knowledge of civil engineering(my carrer) . My passion is for Permaculture,Alternative Energy, Agriculture ,Water harvesting , rammed earth building with laterite from the site,tree culture , etc etc ,, can you tell me how you built the eco dome .. and what it is used for ..."

Thanks to Cicely for putting the photo up in the first place, and to Marcus for his vision and all his hard work on the eco-dome.


Responding

Can we rub minds and see how we can respond

  • If we had the resoures to do so
  • Given we have no resources at present - and a tiny existing team with no external funding

Has anyone got time or other resources (or ability to get them) to move forward on this?

Effective networking on Flickr

Andy - you are the one with vision for how dadamac should be using flickr in a social networking way, not just as a place to store photos. Please help me learn from this.
It's great that the photo has been seen and attracted a response. It's sad that the response had been there two months and I have only just come across it. 

  • Is there an easy way I can discover if there are comments on other photos?
  • How can I find out more about the person who wrote the comment? (I'd like to email him - and copy the email to dadamac's posterous)
  • What happens if I reply via Flickr - is the reply posted to him? (If so - who gets emails in dadamac if someone sends reply to us?)
  • NB - there isn't really anyone with spare time to nurture our flickr network properly - but I should at least be more aware of your vision and try to take some steps now and again, however small

The workers

Cicely and Marcus - greetings - I hope you enjoy seeing this. Your work was so valuable. I would love to catch up with you sometime.

Marcus - I hope you will be pleased to see that your ecodome work is still having as effect, (even though we were not able to get any funds to enable you to stay beyond your "working holiday"). John is still struggling to get any funding to do the work at Attachab in a way that matches the vision. It is all still very much relying on people like you, coming when they can, sharing what they know for love rather than money - and therefore not able to stay for long. If ever we do manage to get money, to take things forward  would you be able to come back and join us I wonder. I hope we have not completely lost you because of too much time passing.

Building our team and resources

Open letter readers - Maybe some of you can help us with this.

We need to  break through into a situation where money and vision will combine - when "top down resourcing" and "on the ground genuine good ideas that need resources" will actually effectively connect.  My plan is to keep plodding on with the "dadamac open knowledge" strategy I have adopted - i.e. putting my effort into helping people to share knowledge and information,  and to do it in as visible a way as I can - hence www.dadamac.net and our presence on posterous. My belief and hope is that people who need local networks, or knowledge or ideas (and have time, money, or other resources) will decide to connect with dadamac  - and together we will be able to implement more of the plans and potential projects that are always buzzing in dadamac hearts and minds.

If this approach makes sense to you, please help us to spread the word, pass on this email to others, and/or contact me - pamela'mclean@dadamac.net

Agenda item

Nikki - please add this to the agenda to next week's meeting. It is a small step towards John's dream of Attachab as a model site sharing what it does with others. Dear to my own heart too of course ref the role of the Internet in non-formal learning and knowledge sharing.

Practicalities and information bottleneck issues - collaborators connect

I'm experimenting with various ways to be less of an information bottleneck. One idea - already welcomed by some of my contacts - is to bring together those of us who have overlapping interests and practical projects into a group called collaborators connect. Various things are currently pushing me towards getting this started. Maybe setting up collaborators connect and inviting our new Kenyan contact would be a first step forward in helping him to find our more about ecodomes and how his vision and work could connect with John's. Samwel is also trying compelementary things at Mbita island.

Hmm - "launch collaborators connect"  - another item to move higher up my to-do list - please let people know that I need some help.

pamela.mclean@dadamac.net