It is my absolute delight to share with you my conversation with Ego Lemos from Timor Leste on Sense-Making in a Changing World. Listen in and read the blog to hear how Ego created Permakids, Permayouth, restoration camps, teacher training, school programs and more.
Download this list of 10 of Morag’s favourite books.
Morag’s 4 part introduction to permaculture video series.
Ego is a humble yet radical positive change-maker, who grew up in the tumultuous time of the Indonesian occupation. His work over the decades with Permaculture has caused it to mushroom in his country. He is largely responsible for permaculture being a compulsory subject for EVERY primary school-aged child in his country. Permaculture is in the National curriculum and starting to extend to high schools too. Since 2011 he has lectured about Permaculture at the National University and invites students to come and learn practical permaculture skills around the countryside (which they get credit for).
Watch our Conversation
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Read the full transcript here.
Morag Gamble: Welcome to the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive way forward. I’m your host Morag Gamble.. Permaculture Educator, and Global Ambassador, Filmmaker, Eco villager, Food Forester, Mother, Practivist and all around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively. For a long time it’s been clear to me that to shift trajectory to a thriving one planet way of life we first need to shift our thinking, the way we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, self, and community is the core. So this is true now more than ever. And even the way change is changing, is changing. Unprecedented changes are happening all around us at a rapid pace. So how do we make sense of this? To know which way to turn, to know what action to focus on? So our efforts are worthwile and nourishing and are working towards resilience, regeneration, and reconnection. What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation..
Morag Gamble: In this podcast, I’ll share conversations with my friends and colleagues, people who inspire and challenge me in their ways of thinking, connecting and acting. These wonderful people are thinkers, doers, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, educators, people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post-COVID, climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their ideas and projects help us to make sense in this changing world to compost and digest the ideas and to nurture the fertile ground for new ideas, connections and actions. Together we’ll open up conversations in the world of permaculture design, regenerative thinking community action, earth repair, eco-literacy, and much more. I can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Over the last three decades of personally making sense of the multiple crises we face I always returned to the practical and positive world of permaculture with its ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. I’ve seen firsthand how adaptable and responsive it can be in all contexts from urban to rural, from refugee camps to suburbs. It helps people make sense of what’s happening around them and to learn accessible design tools, to shape their habitat positively and to contribute to cultural and ecological regeneration.
Morag Gamble: This is why I’ve created the Permaculture Educators Program to help thousands of people to become permaculture teachers everywhere through an interactive online dual certificate of permaculture design and teaching. We sponsor global Permayouth programs, women’s self help groups in the global South and teens in refugee camps. So anyway, this podcast is sponsored by the Permaculture Education Institute and our Permaculture Educators Program. IIf you’d like to find more about permaculture, I’ve created a four-part permaculture video series to explain what permaculture is and also how you can make it your livelihood as well as your way of life. We’d love to invite you to join a wonderfully inspiring, friendly, and supportive global learning community. So I welcome you to share each of these conversations, and I’d also like to suggest you create a local conversation circle to explore the ideas shared in each show and discuss together how this makes sense in your local community and environment. I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land o n which I meet and speak with you today. The Gubbi Gubbi people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
Morag Gambl e: Hi everyone. It’s my absolute delight to share with you today this conversation with Ego Lemos from Timor-Leste. Ego is a humble yet radical, positive change maker. He grew up in the tumultuous time of the Indonesian occupation in Timor-Leste. And over the decades, he’s worked with permaculture to help it mushroom as he says, throughout his country. He’s largely responsible for permaculture being a compulsory subject for every primary school-aged child in his country. Permaculture is in the national curriculum and it’s starting to extend into high schools, too. And even since 2011, he’s been lecturing in permaculture at the National University. He’s launched permakids programs, permayouth camps that since 2008 have had well over a thousand youth attending whenever they’re run. He also runs three-day training programs for teachers of permaculture in schools. And he now organizes camps around restoring the upper catchments to help rehydrate the landscape. He’s also an advisor to the National Government in lots of different sectors. And not only that, Ego is a musician. His song Balibo was awarded Best Song composed for the screen in a movie that starred Damon Gameau and Anthony LaPaglia. So Ego is a fascinating character who I am absolutely delighted to have spent the time chatting with. We met ages ago at the permaculture conference, and I’ll put a link in where you can find that conversation to where he talks a little bit more, too , about growing up in Indonesian occupation. Also just really important to acknowledge, too, that Timor is a young country with over 70% of the population under 30 years old and actually 70% of the people living in farming areas. And it continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world with over 40% of their 1.3 million population living in poverty. So what Ego does in his community is absolutely essential and is making such positive difference. So, join me in this conversation, and I really hope you can hear much inspiration for how you might be able to help cultivate some amazing local programs in your communities. There were two key questions that I was exploring with Ego. One was, you know, what is Permayouth and how he got it started? And the other was about what are the kind of resources that he’s been able to create through the work that he’s done and how that is now being shared out through the world, through the Tropical Permaculture Manual which he was co-author of – a thousand-page manual, which is absolutely extraordinary. Also the materials he’s developed for schools, the handbooks and the posters. So enjoy. I hope you’ll find a lot of really fantastic inspiration here in this conversation.
*Ego singing Let’s Fix the Earth in the background*
Ego Lemos: Regarding the Permaculture Youth in Timor, since we started in 2008. The number is about 400 youth . Then after we have second camp in 2010 it increased to more than 600 people. And then in 2012 it’s almost 900 people and 2015, almost a thousand, I think it was a thousand youth. Yeah. And then in 2018 we have over a thousand youth gathered. And now we are preparing for the next one, which we plan in November… 23rd to 28th of November. And so we still target 1,000 youth, but depends on now because of the situation of COVID. So we are not sure yet whether we can gather these number of people, but still a lot , even 500. It’s a lot. And so during the camp we have about..the Last time in 2018, we have about 15 workshops in a day which is a practical workshop in the field, straight in the community land. That’s one week worth.. It lasts for three days. So for instance, a workshop on aquaculture. So the participant with the facilitator, they’re working , building fishpond, and also they learn about how to grow fish. Also how to combine fish and chicken , and a vegetable garden, and also workshop about , uh, cuisine. About cooking. So we invite some Timorese chef to facilitate the workshop and they cook during the workshop. Different type of recipes. And we also have workshop on water resource conservation. So the past one with the facilitator, they create like a key dam . Here we call it a reservoir, a small reservoir, which can be dig by hand. So I think , during the camp in three days, they build maybe up to five reservoir, which is I think about 10 x 20 meter by one or one and a half. So it’s to capture the rainwater during the rain season. So, the reservoir , feeding the spring so that community can access to the clean water, but also , we have workshop on seed saving. So I could share you this concept note or two out of the program , last one that’s already in English, but the new one we haven’t translated yet. But I can share you some , the concept note for the new camp that’s gonna come.
Ego Lemos: So the idea is like, are we building up this kind of camp and so the participants of the youth camp come from across the whole country. We attract some international participants. Last time, not many but mostly people coming from Indonesia from Western part West Timor, the border of Timo . So, more than 20 youth come from Indonesia to join, and if everything goes smoothly. I think UNESCO, Jakarta also, they interested to send the youth from Indonesia and a youth from West Timor and the youth from Bali. Also, they want to join, but we hope that this pandemic ends soon so that we could welcome the international participants from all over the place. And for this next coming camp, we prepare about 9 practical workshops because in the practical workshop, I think about two or three workshop, which will involve more participants. For instance, What Are Source Conservation, we’re hoping to get about 200 or at least 50 youth involved in that workshop. So then we divide them into three groups, 50 each group. So they can build a reservoir around the campsite. Then the other workshop that we are going to recruit same number of people is , Agroforestry and Bioengineer like a buildings terraces, wells. So that will go along with water conservation. And so, we want to scale up water conservation activities and end of the year after the camp , when rain come, we want all of this youth go back to their respective villages to start doing these kind of activities. And we promise in our new concept note that we won’t give this youth a certificate until we see what they’re doing.
Morag Gamble: In their own village?
Ego Lemos: Yeah in their own village. Last year we did a training to 120 participants for water preservation. From December in 2 places like each place, 60 people. And again, we apply same rules. We won’t give them certificate. We gave them three months. Three months at minimum for them to apply. After we get the report, we go and see what they’re doing. If t’s done, then we will produce the certificate for them. The last March we gave about maybe a 106 or 107 certificates to those people who implemented in their areas. So last December to January to February we produced about 41 reservoirs across the country.
Morag Gamble: Fantastic. Wow. That’s such a great model. Absolutely fantastic. So do the kids, how do the kids hear about it? And what age are they and are they paying for that? Or do you get sponsorship to run this program for them practically how that’s working?
Ego Lemos: For Timor, they don’t pay but we’re looking for sponsorship. We talk to the government and talk to the international agencies to cover the cost of transport, cost of the food. And also , yeah, they just participate and when they finish the training, we also provide kind of an incentive, like food so that they go back and involve more people in their respective village to working on the water resource conservation. So it involves like a thousand people across the country. So this kind of activities is what we’re doing. And the age of the group, the youth is we’re targeting above 17 years old. Apart from having Permayouth, we also have Permakids. So that’s age 12 to 17. When I look at the age group that you mentioned I think for us, they’re part of the kids. For the youth prefereably we’re looking for 18 years old above so that would be perfect because it involves physical activities more. And below that [age] they’re part of the kids.
Morag Gamble: So what do you do on the Permakids camp. Different from the permayouth camp, or is it the same thing, but they just do different programs.
Ego Lemos: Permakids is more about gardening. Yeah . They more about gardening , about cooking a nd also games. In kids camp, we prepare breakfast and lunch, but the you th, t hey cook themselves. So we jus t pr ovide raw food. We give them raw food every day. They cook breakfast and lun ch. U h, la st time lunch we prepare in the community where they work and then after when they come back to the cam p sit e and they coo k fo r dinner.
Morag Gamble: Sorry, I was going to ask you, where’s the sites that you use. Is there one particular camp that you use all the time or do you move to different places?
Ego Lemos: We keep moving because we want to impact on the community. So that’s why we keep moving and we select . Normally we choose five places ahead. Then we send a team to do an assessment, for instance, look at how close is the community , what’s the supply. And then we vote , democratically, we vote among the committee and then whichever place is gets most of the vote. That’s the one. We’ve got to prepare for it. Then we go talking with local authority like a district administrator, the police commander and we approach them to start to discuss about the activities and also with the local youth. So we start to do some activities ahead so that they can be prepared. So like now, since last year , we already doing some activities at the camp that we’re planning to do the permayouth, so that they are aware that their site is going to be .. So we prepare like water conservation activities and we do training on horticulture , c ompost making. And so we started to do activities one year prior to the c amp.
Morag Gamble: Hmm. Wow. This is so well organized. Gosh. And it sounds like it’s not just workshops, but it’s kind of like a whole festival event. Like, I’m sure you have music and dance.
Ego Lemos: Yeah it’s like a youth festival because after the practical workshop in field, we also have an exhibition like an expo in the campsite. So it’s open to public, so anyone can come , to see, and then starting three o’clock in the afternoon, all participants is free from the practical workshop. So they go back and they have a shower or they clean and then they can participate in games or talk show in different expo site. Then starting 6 to 7 , it’s dinner time then 7-8. It’s movie time. So we have big screen and we play movies for one hour, l ike one hour we use short film a 10-15 minute film. So one hour at least we show four films. And then 8-10 we call is cultural n ight. So we have a big stage. So we have performances. All sorts of performances can be performed by the participants or we invite some local artists to perform and mainly it’s performed by the participants. They do poems, they do t heater, they do music, they do dancing. It’s so much like sometime when five days after the camping is t hat t hey don’t want to go home.
Morag Gamble: So can you just, like, where did this whole idea come from and how did you get it started? Because, you know, this is absolutely brilliant. I mean, this needs to happen in every country. It’s such a brilliant idea. How did you get it started?
Ego Lemos: Well I think seeing the statistic of Timor , reading that majority of the population , I think 70% is the age below 30 years old. So therefore we’ve been thinking like in term of the permaculture activities it would be great if we focus more on involving the young people. C ause t hey’re the one who will [be], as a n actor, to continue this kind of sustainable development in the f uture. And second, we look at the country after post conflict and a lot of trauma. So most of the people still have trauma, there’s anger, especially the youth. So I think we want to do something that the youth can transfer all of these emotions, t heir anger, through something creative, more positive, through permaculture, through art, through painting o r through music. So that’s why we create this kind of space so that we can invite this kind of the youth to, you know, share and learn. To share with each other, and also learning from the local community and also from others. I think there’s so many inspiration behind that. But I think what we want the most is that the young people to go back to t heir village and start permaculture. So that’s why in Timor now permaculture is like, it’s growing like a mushroom. And I think everywhere, including the school g arden, just today, we reported in t he government meeting this morning. So we report that we e stablished setting up 2 24 school gardens already i n the country. So for the Permawkids w e’re inviting the kids coming from this school garden, and also for the young people, the youth that participate in the camp. T hey’re not just ordinary youth like they just come and they want to become a participant, but they have to, one of the rules is they have to b e active in one of the youth organization i n their area because then it’s easy for us to follow up. So when we contact, we contact the organization, we contact the group.
Morag Gamble: And they have more possibility for rippling out action when they go home they’re not just isolated. Yeah. So what are those kinds of organizations? What youth organizations exist ?
Ego Lemos: Various organizations. They come from farmers group organization , also like a religious organization. Also women’s organization , youth organizations , so many organization as long as they are active in one organization, or they’ve been recommended by local villages like a leader.
Morag Gamble: So it’s really like a leadership camp in a way.
Ego Lemos: Yes, yes. And so that we could easily follow up later on. A success story from the few camps in the past. So a few of these youth already become a local leader in their respective villages. One of the Island near Delhi called Atauro Island. One of the local leader is one of our active participant . Now he became a local leader and now he is doing water conservation and he banned all the hunting and also organized with the local community, like cleaning up the beach. And so now the program is not only in one village, but it’s like a scaling up in the whole sub-district in that Island. And we have about maybe about five. In Timor we have sub-village leader, village leader, sub-district, and then district leader. So it’s like a very important leader in their community. They’ve been nominated. They’ve been voted by the people, not appointed.
Morag Gamble: That’s amazing. And that then shifts everything, doesn’t it. And so your strategy of working with young people to cultivate a particular way of being an understanding and practical skills for them to emerge as young leaders who have been representing other people all that time, and then be connected nationally with all those other leaders and internationally, too , I suppose, as well. So it is like mushrooming. It is like this mycelium network that you’ve spread across the country. There were these little fruiting bodies popping up all over the place. It’s really powerful . Yeah . Yeah. That’s great. And you mentioned, too, last time I spoke with you about , how it’s also been taken in by the education department and also is it like agriculture department. Permaculture has found its way into those like national policies, as well. Can you tell us a bit more about how that’s all going?
Ego Lemos: The school garden is now a part of the national curriculum, so it’s collaborated with the Ministry of Education in Timor. It’s a compulsory subject for all primary school.
Morag Gamble: Permaculture is a compulsory subject for all primary school.
Ego Lemos: Yeah for the primary school. Yeah .
Morag Gamble: Fantastic.
Ego Lemos: And now we started piloting. We started piloting in to high school. We just started about five high schools. Two catholic high schools, one national high school and 2 public high school. So also quite amazing successful since we started last year and they are starting to show progress because we want to convince the Ministry of Education to scaling up not only from primary school, but we want to bring up to high school. So every school from primary school up to high school [we want] to have a school garden . And so today this morning I attended a meeting in the government. They invited NGO representatives. So I’m one of them. To give our ideas to the government for two and a half years what should government put in their priority to fix the economical recuperation after the pandemic? So one of the report that I am presenting is we want the school garden to increase in number, scaling up, so that not only (we did) 224 school garden already, but we want like more school gardens. It will be great for all the schools to have a garden, and that can be used as a living laboratory for teaching and also for helping the local community to improve their home garden to produce nutritious food in the local area. That’s the idea behind the school garden not only to produce. So it’s not necessarily for the school so much, but the school garden as the living laboratory for the kids to learn all the process of permaculture caring and produce organic material and growing food. And then when they go home together with the parents , they can implement their home garden.
Morag Gamble: Fantastic. So I was going to ask, what types of home gardens have people already got? I mean, is home gardening something that was let go of, or is it, is there something there and permaculture is another layer on top of what they’re doing? What do people normally have around their home?
Ego Lemos: I think , uh , most of the community they have garden. They have garden. Only some aspect which is missing is they normally burn all their organic matter, like grass and leaves. And they pile all the rubbish like a organic waste together with organic, they burn [it]. So in this aspect after the kids learn from school garden, they go home and they started to change slowly. And so now less burning of organic matter. And they started to separate organic and inorganic. That’s behavioral change. And also they’re starting to make their own compost at home, and they’re doing a raised garden bed which is a lot easier than what they’ve been doing before. So we apply a lot of technique that’s easy to make the garden, and also it’s more sustainable. So these are the kind of ideas that the local community adopt so quick from the school.
Morag Gamble: Sorry to interrupt again. I’ve got so many questions for you. Do you have like little booklets that you give out to the kids or there’s information that you have?
Ego Lemos: Yes. We have , uh let me show you. I don’t [it] have here. We call it Permaculture Garden for Kids. Let me get the book. Just one moment. So yeah, this is the book we have and it’s like a small manual that we use. So a lot of it is about the garden and the step how to do it. And this is about natural pest control. And this is how they can make their own organic pesticide if they want. This one shows them about how they can produce their own local microorganism .
Morag Gamble: Fantastic.
Ego Lemos: Also this one is a nursery, how to make the nursery and the tools and this one is about making compost and this one about living fence. We encourage every school to grow their own fence and they can eat their own fence and call it edible fence. And this one is about seed calendar and how to save their own local seeds is just an example. And how to save the seeds. Then we also introduced a little bit about vertical garden.
Morag Gamble: Ego, is there any way that I can get a copy of that to share with the refugee kids that.. It’s just got absolutely everything in it that is what they need to know. And I know it’s in your language, but I wonder whether there’s a way that it could be trans.. Is it already in English or can we translate it into another language?
Ego Lemos: There is already , we already translated in English only we haven’t formatted yet into this. Yeah, I think I have the wording in English only … Yeah. We haven’t had a chance yet to ask a graphic designer to format it. And I think there’s many requests already for this little book.
Morag Gamble: It’d be so popular. Really.
Ego Lemos: So yeah. Hopefully we could format it. And then I don’t know yet I cannot promise when I could send you this but it’s very hard unless we give it to someone that goes to Australia to take a copy.
Morag Gamble: Do you have it digitally, do you have it on computer as a PDF?
Ego Lemos: I I’ll check with our admin because they’re the one kept it.
Morag Gamble: Yes because currently I’m working with a group of people who like Rosemary Morrow and a whole lot of people who are trying to look at what kind of resources are available for young people school-aged people. Something that’s really tangible, really visual with materials that are accessible. So that, that is just absolutely beautiful, the way that you’ve done it. And so, you know, anyone could pick that up and follow that.
Ego Lemos: We also produce a flip chart out of these books for the teachers.
Morag Gamble: Yes . Fantastic !
Ego Lemos: This is for teachers.
Morag Gamble: So do you send that out to every school that’s got a school garden program? Each school has a kit of these posters, is that how you do it?
Ego Lemos: No. When we get sponsorship from some agency, then we p roduce and print is to g ive it to them. Then they can give i t to the local school. We can ask the government, but it’s very limited. But I think over a hundred school, they g et this. It’s about 9 of them as a pockets from the book. So teacher can put it on the wall and then they can teach the kids and explain about what is in t he little book. So the k ids are holding this and the teachers use this.
Morag Gamble: Yep . That’s just perfect. Isn’t it? And you’re finding that it’s working really well. The teachers, I feel like that combination has worked really well I can imagine.
Ego Lemos: Yeah it helps a lot and then they can adjust because this just an example. And they can adjust into whatever they have in the local. So it’s a very helpful resource for the teachers. And some of the school are already using school garden for teaching different subjects. Like teaching geometric using.. asking kids to measure the size of the garden and also the counting number of plants. And some of the school also using it for teaching language . So the school garden has many many purpose especially to help the teachers teach outside the classroom. And the kids are more motivated in that way, because for instance mathematics is a very boring for most of the kids. When the teacher brought them out to the school garden and ask them to count plants, number of colors or names or variety. Kids love it.
Morag Gamble: So do you have programs where you teach the teachers how to use the gardens and how to use your materials. So I know you got programs for kids, but the teacher education programs, is that what you do, too?
Ego Lemos: Yes, we run workshops for the teachers. Three days workshop for the teachers before they start the school garden. So normally we go to one area which is not only one school. We started setting up a model in one school. Then we invite a representative of the teachers to come from more than 10 schools or up to 20 schools. So we do a teacher training three days into training, like a workshop, and then including doing gardening during two days and making compost and we’re using all of this materials..
Morag Gamble: Yeah. So they understand it, so then they can teach it. Yep . That makes a lot of sense. So do you also give them your big manual? Do they have that as background, or do you.. where does your thousand-page manual fit into your whole educational uite of things.
Ego Lemos: The manual not yet because it’s too big and mainly still in English. Almost, I think, only two chapters left now and when it’s done, I think we have the translation and can be online but to print it to give it to every school I think it costs a lot, but we recommend them to access online. Only problem is not all of Timor has access to the internet. So that’s the hard part.
Morag Gamble: Do you also make films about how to do these different things? Do you send films out to the teachers?
Ego Lemos: No we only do a documentary. About water.. Food garden.. But a film on how to do things, not yet because we don’t have access to that kind of funding.
Morag Gamble: Yeah. Wouldn’t that be? Wouldn’t that be great to have that as part of the suite of things, but you know, the three-day training for teachers that seems like a really critical part of it. So, on the agriculture side. Where does permaculture sit within the agriculture department’s thinking. Is there recognition of permaculture as well as a part of what’s happening?
Ego Lemos: For agriculture so far. I think now a lot easier because they already see the result of what we do. But still we don’t have the same ideas yet, because they’re still influenced by big scale modernized.. So that’s why it’s still hard. And the minister also keeps changing. And those people who don’t understand about sustainable permaculture or agroecology. They don’t have an idea. And so that’s why it’s still hard.
Morag Gamble: Maybe one of your permayouth will become a Minister of Agriculture one day.
Ego Lemos: Hopefully. That’s what we need. We need like maybe ten years, hopefully, you know most of our permaculture people will be a leader in many places. I think it will change the world slowly. One of the ministry that now is starting to get close to us is Ministry of Public Work especially because of water conservation. And being critic a lot about investing a lot in t he water infrastructure, but not putting attention on upstream conservation. So w e’re now w e’re in the process of signing a memorandum to collaborate on water conservation activities. And last year the Ministry o f Public Work is the one who funded Permayouth to do a training on water resource conservation. And also the other government body that also we collaborate very well is Secretary of State Youth and Sports. So, l ast year we train the youth group in youth center. People come from youth center in 13 municipalities on horticulture, a q uaculture a nd animal husbandry using p e rmaculture principles. And they’re abo ut 12 0 youth girls and boys, and 95% of them now implemented. They’re doing fish ponds, they raised chicken, pigs, a l so they’re doing horticulture.
Morag Gamble: So you’re finding that this is actually then helping them to create , um , better livelihoods for themselves. Is it rippling out into that part of their lives as well as just being around food and for the family, but it’s actually helping them to create a job for themselves. Is that helping in that way?
Ego Lemos: Yeah, that’s what we’ve being aiming for. Apart from producing food for themselves, they also create enterprise for themselves. So they can create jobs. Because Timor has high unemployment rate. So that’s why, as I mentioned that because mostly young people when they finish school, high school or university, they don’t get a job, while 70% of the people living in rural area, they have land, they have water, they have resource, but everyone wants to have jobs in the office. So that’s why the unemployment is very high. So it’s forcing government to go and lobby c ompanies like beverages. Like beer, soft dr ink, or, you know, t o es tablish a company. And the government pr omise t hat this company will recruit thousand young people or employ thousand people. So it’s all about promising without creating something that’s more sustainable i n th eir l ocal area.
Morag Gamble: So what size..Sorry. I was going to say, what size of land is typical for people to have, like how much land does a family have?
Ego Lemos: I think majority of family in Timor at least they have a minimum one hectare. Like a two-acre minimum, and some, they get more. But, you know, they abandoned this land. Um, also we have 30% of the agricultural land is for rice cultivation. And now I think 90% of the rice paddy is abandoned because no water . Yeah. So that’s why..
Morag Gamble: So where’s the rice coming from? Is it all being imported?
Ego Lemos: Imported.
Morag Gamble: From Indonesia?
Ego Lemos: Not from Indonesia as they are also having problems. So, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. So therefore we criticize the agriculture ministries that a lot of investment goes into rice production, but they intend to forget about diversifying other crops. So that’s what we keep yelling, you know?
Morag Gamble: Yeah. And also what you’re doing with getting the.. looking at the whole water system and restoring the hydrology of the land. Actually taking a few steps back and doing that work so that then you can restore the water system to rehydrate the landscape. It makes so much sense. I hope they listen to you. My gosh. It makes perfect sense to hear what you’re doing. Y eah.
Ego Lemos: So, yeah, that’s why I think slowly some of the government leaders or politicians, they’re starting to become aware of what we’ve been doing . Especially Permaculture, AgroEcology. I think it’s started slowly spreading throughout the policy of the government. And hopefully in few years time there will be a lot more happening in Timor with Sustainable agriculture or permaculture.
Morag Gamble: I was going to ask you what about the impact of climate change on your country and is that being a catalyst for people to think differently about perhaps using permaculture and more regenerative strategies?
Ego Lemos: Yeah, I think the climate change has impact as well on Timor as an Island country. One impact is water scarcity. So many people have no access to clean water, many spring dries out, many rivers also dry out. . When rains come, many stream function when rains come, but also when heavy rain come it causes a lot disaster as well because we lost forest in many parts. In many parts of Timor, people cut down the forest , burning and that increased the, extend the dry season. Like we just have devastating flooding last March, which is… Some part of Dili. A lot of impact and people lost and got their houses destroyed. So much damage that’s because again we keep advising the Minister of Public Work that we need to create a system on top of the upstream. So that to slow down the water flow during heavy rain or rainy season and the water that can recharge back to the ground, you feed the spring and feed the groundwater. So again and again, keep repeating. Then we have to go and do it by ourselves and then invite them to see it. Those area that we’re working on experience less damage because water is captured in the upper land . And then it slows down the water flow into the low land .
Morag Gamble: Fantastic. That’s brilliant. Just on the continuity of the education theme, and particularly with regards to learning about all of this and how to restore landscapes, is any of this education entering into the universities or is it particularly something that is being learned just by getting out with you and your teams and going out into the landscape. Has permaculture reach the university level, I guess, is the question that I’m asking, or is that not such an important thing? Is it more important just to get the teams out there?
Ego Lemos: Well actually it’s a high demand from the university for us to teach at the university. Like I myself I’ve been teaching at the national university since 2011 . On introducing sustainable culture/permaculture but then because of so many activities that I have to deal with so now I don’t teach. But some of the university still send the student to most of the activites. Last year they send students to the youth camp, to water camp and they are involved in digging the reservoir. So it’s part of their lesson.
Morag Gamble: So do they get credits to their degree from coming out and doing water camp, youth camp. Is that part of?
Ego Lemos: Yeah. It’s part of their credit. Last time when celebrating the world water day in Timor, Permatil organized Water Camp in March and so many university students attended the water camp. A three-day water camp. And during the Water camp we discuss and we do this practical activities and we planted a couple thousand trees around the reservoir. And so we’re still hoping to continue to build up. And also, I think it’s just a matter of human resource so we could deploy to different universities to teach. Minister of Education is asking me if I could develop a material on water conservation to include in the next curriculum reform for the high school. And because, you know, I have so many things on my plate.
Morag Gamble: You’re doing a remarkable amount my gosh, I don’t know how you hold this together. I mean, do you have a good team? Are there many other people like you who’ve risen up through kind of permaculture practical work, who you can collaborate with around the country..
Ego Lemos: For practical teaching we now have over 50 volunteers that’s ready to deploy anywhere to do a school garden or water conservation. And they’re ready anytime , as long as we support their transport and give them lump sum for food and they are ready to deploy anywhere. But in term of writing curriculums, writing materials for the university or for the government is not many people. Not even five finger in this institution yet. I have to force myself to think outside of the box to try and contribute whatever I can.
Morag Gamble: I was just going to ask you what can the international permaculture community do to support you? Or how can they find out more about what you’re doing, but not so much to come and, you know , take a bit , like how can they come to support what you’re doing? Is there a way that you would appreciate some kind of backing or support from the global permaculture community?
Ego Lemos: Yeah. I’m sure there is many people who want to support. Only one barrier is the language. But I’m sure many permaculture friends around the globe they want to support. But I always say, please if you have a chance come visit Timor. So you can understand about the culture or about the climate so then I can contribute in the proper way. But I think just to is to keep promoting the ideas. I think that’s another way that can help a lot especially for our government and politicians they prefer to listen to someone that worked for the world bank or ADB or in international agencies like a German agency or Japanese agency rather than listen to a local person or Timorese because I think it’s happening all over the world. They think that something that comes from outside is the best, but sometimes it’s good, but sometimes for instance, I don’t trust people from world bank or ADB they influence the government in the wrong way. That’s happening all over Asia Pacific or even African countries. It justs create a disaster. But people coming from a permaculture organization , I think we speak in the same language. If we all speak the same language and I’m sure people will, the government, especially the politicians, will listen . Like now the book , the manual is now being downloaded in many countries. Now Timorese people see on Facebook that something comes from Timor can spread, they start to listen. Why is this happening? And they start to ask a lot of questions, how you do it. Before they never did. They ignore and they don’t listen to you.
Morag Gamble: It’s not as valued. There’s 82,000 downloads of the chapters of your book globally, that’s phenomenal. That’s well up there in global bestseller numbers. It’s really spreading out everywhere. I can refer to it as well and share it with people in all different countries, because you know I work in mostly tropical and subtropical climate, so it’s so valuable. And because it’s so visual, it’s just absolutely brilliant. What an amazing resource that you’ve created. So, I mean , I’m wondering whether there’s a way to through your organization, you’ve now created Permatil Global. Is that right? And so I’ll put some links down below for people to maybe get some information about that, but if they were to . Like, does it help to receive donations? Is that helpful for you to do your work, to spread your work out further?
Ego Lemos: Yeah, I think the idea of starting Permatil Global is to spread good ideas that Timor can share with the rest of the globe, but also we want to create a foundation that we could share [inaudible]. Hopefully this can help. But also we try to raise some funds to help Permatil to scale up the program in Timor so that we could create Timor or as a model not completely can be duplicate in other countries, but some of the techniques, strategies or some of the ideas can be copied. And of course we are willing to support any organization or any country that want to see this model work we are willing to advise or give our technical assistance . Of course , we want to how they want to learn from Timorian.
Morag Gamble: Fantastic. Well, I can just already see the direct links with what you’re doing and the perrmayouth groups in the refugee camps in Uganda and Kenya and some of the villages there as well. It’s absolutely so relevant and so important and inspiring as well. Like this is what’s possible. You’ve been doing this for how long now well over a decade.
Ego Lemos: 12 years now.
Morag Gamble: Yeah. And so to see where you can take it and how you can start to make changes at a community level in schools and in governments a nd really o pen up wide. And I know, like you’re saying there’s still so much to do, but you’ve done an incredible amount already. It’s really, really inspiring. Y eah.
Ego Lemos: And we also have video documentary which is we’re trying to make subtitles in English. One is the permayouth camp from last time, 2018. Hopefully if we have that we could say it with you. Probably we could put it on Permatil website and also the other one a documentary on water conservation as well. And we are very happy to hear that permayouth is about to start in Uganda. I mean, when you text me permayouth is starting in other country already.
Morag Gamble: Yeah. And this group that are meeting every week now using this platform zoom where there’s a girl in Zanzibar, there’s kids in Uganda, there’s people from Sweden, Philippines, Thailand. I wonder if there’s any young people in Timor that would like to join up every Sunday they meet, they’re starting to meet. Do you know of any people who have access to zoom, who’d be interested in joining these?
Ego Lemos: Sure . We could facilitate that. I think the permayouth we could facilitate. And so some of volunteer that involved in organizing the next permayouth camp they would love to do this kind of meeting. Yeah. Only let me try to find someone that’s capable of speaking English.
Morag Gamble: Okay. The other thing would be if there’s someone like a young person who or even yourself to actually drop in and speak to the young people. So we often invite guests to come in and speak with the permayouth and to inspire them. So, you know, whether it be yourself or one of the other young leaders who would be to them, that would be fantastic.
Ego Lemos: Yeah. We also have permayouth leader in Permatil in Timor. We have some female leader. So I think they’re also willing to share. We have… She speak good English. She’s one of the pioneer of permayouth as well and also three others that can join in. But if I have time, I could, you know, I’d love to join one day. Only my laptop, my computer, I don’t know what’s wrong. I have to update it. Probably the program or I’m not sure.
Morag Gamble: Yeah. Well, thank so much. I could keep talking to you, but I know you’ve got so much to do, and it’s been an absolute pleasure talking with you and so much inspiration and so many great ideas that. I’m really delighted to be able to help ripple out the idea of permayouth to other places. And I remember speaking with you, like I said, a couple of years ago at the permaculture conference and we had a little chat on video then, and then as well, feeling absolutely inspired by what you’re doing. So, you know, it’s, what you’re doing in Timor-Leste is infecting the world with this positive approach. Thank you. It’s all I can say over and over. Yeah .
Ego Lemos: Yeah . I watch your video on gardening on Facebook. Yeah.
Morag Gamble: I just started a podcast as well. So I’m sort of just trying to find ways to share permaculture in as many different ways as possible for people to hear, for people to watch, for kids to get involved in. We’re organizing just a little camp here in the next month. Nowhere nearly a thousand, but, you know, we’ll start small and build it up as we go.
Ego Lemos: Yeah, start from small. Like growing seeds.
Morag Gamble: That’s exactly right. Yeah. It’s been lovely to see you and to chat with you and thanks for taking the time and persisting, even though we dropped out a few times. It’s been lovely to see you. Thanks Ego.
Ego Lemos: Yeah. Cheers. Bye bye!
Morag Gamble: Thanks for tuning in to the sense-making in a changing world podcast today, it’s been a real pleasure to have your company. I invite you to subscribe and receive notification of each new weekly episode with more wonderful stories, ideas, inspiration, and common sense for living and working regeneratively and core positive permaculture thinking of design interaction in this changing world. I’m including a transcript below and a link also to my four-part permaculture series, really looking at what is permaculture and how to make it your livelihood, too. So, join me again in the next episode where we talk with another fascinating guest, I look forward to seeing you there.
About Ego Lemos
Ego has launched Permakids and Permayouth and the camps he’s been running since 2008 always have well over a thousand youth! They arrange many 3 day workshops for the youth to build great practical skills. Ego also organises permaculture teacher training, Water Youth Camps for upstream rehabilitation and advises the government.
As well as being a highly respected permaculture leader in his country, and a TEDx speaker, he is a singer-songwriter. His song Balibo was awarded best original song composed for the screen at the 2009 Screen Music Awards and a 2009 APRA Award for best song in a film – it was the title song from the movie Balibo, featuring Damon Gameau and Anthony La Paglia.
Permayouth in Timor
Permayouth programs are so important in Timor – a young country with over 70% of the population under 30 years old and 70% of people living in farming areas. It continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world with 40%+ of their 1.3 million population living in poverty.
Ego is also a founder of Permatil Global and co-author of the remarkable 1000+ page Tropical Permaculture Manual that is available online as a pay-as-you-can offering. It is in English and now the language of Timor Leste, Tetum, and is being translated to other languages too. It is a comprehensive resource of permaculture, food sovereignty and environmental regeneration strategies.
Here is the interview we recorded together earlier: A Permaculture Country
Find out more about permaculture
We need more people who can also support projects like Ego’s.
Learn more about permaculture in my 4 part permaculture series and explore the many free permaculture resources in my Youtube and blog. We definitely need more permaculture teachers everywhere to restore balance to earth’s systems, and to help facilitate regenerative practices.
I invite you to join the Permaculture Educators Program with others from 6 continents – a comprehensive online course that includes the Permaculture Design Certificate and the only online Permaculture Teacher Certificate anywhere.
To support free permaculture education for people in refugee camps please donate to Ethos Foundation – the registered charity associated with the Permaculture Education Institute. We invite young people to join the Global Permayouth Festivals each month.
I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I live and work – the Gubbi Gubbi people.
Thank you to Rhiannon for sound editing and Kim for the music.
Would you like to teach permaculture?
Permaculture education reaches across the globe connecting communities, ideas, and resources, and builds hope and possibility. Becoming a permaculture teacher is a positive way to make a difference – as a volunteer or as your job – and support communities around you (or on the other side of the world), and connect with and regenerate your local environment.
Join a global network of [pr]activists addressing the interconnected crises humanity (actually, all life) is facing today. The Permaculture Educators Program joins people together on 6 continents – from Nambucca to Nepal, Sikkim to Spain, California to Kakuma refugee settlement.
Join Permaculture Australia too!
Subscribe & Share
Thanks for tuning into Sense-making in a Changing World today. It has been a pleasure to have your company. I invite you to subscribe (via your favourite podcast app like iTunes) and receive notification of each new weekly episode.
Each Wednesday I will share more wonderful stories, ideas, inspiration and common sense for living and working regeneratively. Positive permaculture thinking, design and action is so needed in this changing world.
What is permaculture?
Take a look at my free 4 part permaculture series or Our Permaculture Life Youtube and my permaculture blog too. For an introduction to permaculture online course, I recommend The Incredible Edible Garden course. I also offer an online Permaculture Educators Program (Permaculture Design Certificate and Permaculture Teacher Certificate) and involve young people in permaculture through Permayouth (11-16yos).
Warm regards,
Morag Gamble
Founder, Permaculture Education Institute
I acknowledge the Traditional owners of the land from which I am broadcasting, the Gubbi Gubbi people, and pay my respects to their elders past present and emerging.
Thank you Rhiannon Gamble for audio editing – a challenging task this week with poor connection
Thank you to Kim Kirkman (Harp) and Mick Thatcher (Guitar) for donating this piece from their album Spirit Rider.