Re-skilling families for the future - family eco camps...

Plan-it Earth are a Cornwall based enterprise providing not only luxury yurt camping holidays on their beautiful small holding but also Family Eco Camps. They explain all here....

Four years ago, in an endeavour to minimise our personal carbon footprints, my wife Rachel and I, together with a friend, Ian, decided to buy an old farmhouse near to Penzance, in West Cornwall. On 7 ½ acres of land, the idea was to create a dual household micro-community – working the land together, but with our own distinct living spaces. At the point of purchase, we legally split the land and buildings according to our relative investments, and drew up deeds to ensure a clean break should either party wish to move on.

Ian is the Managing Director of Cornwall Energy Plus – a registered charity promoting energy efficiency and renewable energies, in order to reduce the impact of climate change.

Rachel has spent time as a WWOOF-er (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) growing vegetables, learning animal husbandry and a variety of other land-based practical skills, and is now keen to share skills with volunteer helpers. An experienced Youth Worker and workshop Facilitator, she offers both creative and nature-based workshops, has a particular interest in social exclusion issues, and in encouraging peer mentoring.

A member of Cornwall County Council's ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) advisory board, I currently work as an Instructor at the award-winning* Carnyorth Environmental Education Centre, designing and delivering a range of educational packages for schools, with a hefty environmental bias.

*South West England's Green Energy awards 2006 – Best Community Project.

From the humble beginnings of simply trying to reduce our own carbon footprints, as well as those of our children (Rosie, 6, Jacca, 2, and Ian's daughter Molly,11) our 'micro-community' has given birth to Plan-it Earth – an Environmental Education Project aimed at Re-skilling families and the community in preparation for Peak Oil, and the inevitable Powerdown that will ensue.

In the meantime, Transition Culture has firmly arrived in this part of Cornwall. In conjunction with Transition Penwith, Plan-it Earth has offered opportunities for rural craft, re-skilling workshops in such diverse areas as:

• tree planting
• coppicing and green woodworking
• charcoal burning
• indigo dyeing
• felting, weaving, and clothes-making from recycled textiles
• community vegetable growing
• jam, chutney and wine making
• animal husbandry
• sausage, bacon and salami making
• rainwater harvesting
• biological waste water treatment
• compost toilet construction
• turf roofing
• cob oven building

In all the activities we have hosted – whether it be making meals from the animals raised and vegetables grown on the smallholding, or making clothing from the wool off our own sheep – our aim is to provide opportunities for people to gain a direct and connected experience of being part of their environment, not separate from it.

In addition to the physical activities available on site, as Transition Penwith supporters, we provide a space where people can gather to facilitate the organisation of awareness-raising and re-skilling activities out in the wider community.

As a particular focus, we feel, along with many other parents, that there is a genuine need for children to learn real life skills, which today's mainstream schooling spends so little time on – practical skills such as growing vegetables, cooking, making clothes, green woodworking and building, in order to prepare them in a positive and empowering way for future Powerdown and energy descent.

To address this re-skilling need, Plan-it Earth are hosting a Family Eco Camps during the May bank holidays in 2008.

Based at the Plan-it Earth traditional smallholding, by exploring the immediate surrounding area with our experienced environmental educators, families will discover how pre-industrial-age people understood, lived, and worked with the land. They'll be introduced to Permaculture ideas, and learn skills as diverse as making herbal ointments, green furniture, and felted clothing. These, combined with bushcraft skills, animal husbandry, fireside and cob oven cookery, will make a memorable, life enhancing and, we hope, "life changing" long weekend for every member of the family.

Our all-inclusive Family Eco Camp is as carbon neutral as possible, with comfortable canvas tent accommodation (all bedding supplied); wood-burning hot showers; composting toilets; a wetland soak-away for grey water; all meals fully catered for by our wonderful, wholefood chef, using the smallholding's own, as well as locally sourced, produce; and a generous discount for arrival by public transport to encourage families to leave their cars at home.

As well as the Family Eco Camps, Plan-it Earth also offer Yurt Holidays in two sumptous yurts- complete with seperate kitchen tent and outside camp fires.

2008 DATES:

Plan-it Earth Family Eco Camp will run:

Whitsun Bank Holiday: Fri 23 – Mon 26 May

COSTS: £315* for 1 adult and 1 child (each additional child £50, each additional adult £75) comprising all catered food, accommodation and workshops.

*This includes a 20% discount for arriving by public transport – Plan-it Earth are happy to arrange collection and drop off at the station.

Yurt holidays start from £175 per week and run from May to October 2008.

For further details on booking a holiday, or getting involved in Plan-it Earth Environmental Education Project, please contact:

David and Rachel Smart Knight via our website: www.plan-itearth.org.uk or email: enquiries@plan-itearth.org.uk or phone: (44) 01736 810660