Thailand
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Pun Pun Sustainability Study Tour
A personal study trip exchanging and staying with leaders in the sustainability movement in Thailand including a grassroots look at organic farming, earthen building, fair trade, traditional medicine, community empowerment, and self-reliance.

February 14-25, 2008
Northeastern to Northern Thailand

Through our work in earthen building, organic farming, and community living we have established strong relationships with various groups at the forefront of this movement in Thailand. Each group is diverse in its target and implementation, yet all hold a common vision of empowering people to become self-reliant and sustainable. We invite you to come to learn from each of them by joining us on this study tour.

In a period of 12 days we will visit several communities starting in the agricultural northeastern region to the mountainous northern region of Thailand. Visit with members of a fair trade organic farmers’ cooperative, community-based herbal medicine facility, intentional communities from small to large scale, leaders in the fast growing earthen building movement, Buddhist self-reliant community based on “meritism”, founders of the earthen village, family permaculture farm hosting natural medicine trainings, and Pun Pun organic farm, sustainable living learning center and seed center. On the way visit ancient ruins of the old capital of Thailand 700 yrs ago.

In this unique event you will get a chance to exchange personally with leaders in the sustainability movement at a grassroots level that would be otherwise hard to access. Peggy Reents and Jo Jandai have both worked with these groups in supporting their development and can open access to interested folks by providing relationships and full translation. Come and learn together with us from their wisdom, experience and help support their work while also just having a really great time and experiencing Thailand!

We will:

• Stay at Jo Jandai’s organic family farm and stay in an earthen house in the rice fields, where their village organic farmer’s group was started.
• Visit the local organic farmer’s fair trade Jasmine rice cooperative of Kutchum, of which Jo’s family are members, and discuss with farmers what impact fair and free trade has had on Thai farmers. Also visit their community herbal medicine facility.
• Visit an emerging intentional sustainable community called “Garden of Dhamma” who hosts natural health trainings, and organic farming trainings helping farmers to make the transition to organic.
• Exchange with members probably the most self-reliant community in Thailand, the “Santi Asok”. The Asok is a network of Buddhist, organic farmers who believe in work as meditation and the ideology of “meritism” instead of capitalism or socialism. Experience a large-scale community of many hundred people as we visit the Ubon Ratchathani Asok and see how they produce all the organic produce and food they eat as well as products to sell, home school their children, and escape materialism and consume culture.
• Travel with us to “Mun Yeun” (or sustainable community in English) which consists of villagers who have lost their land and suffered the adverse effects of large-scale dam projects, who now seek to show a more ecological form of development. They decided they wanted to show the public what villager-based development could look. In 2002 they created Mun Yeun community with homes built of earth and other local materials, and food production from organic techniques along with local forest foraging.
• Stop off in Sukothai town, the home of the ancient capital of Thailand 700 years ago, rest, and tour the ruins.
• Travel to northern Thailand, Chiang Mai, and stay at a family farm and example of a truly villager-based permaculture model. Listen to this family’s story of converting their land into a flourishing, bio-diverse, canal and coconut based ecosystem.
• Finish the trip by coming up to Mae Taeng district, an hour north of Chiang Mai and stay at Peggy and Jo’s project, “Pun Pun” (Thousand Varieties) organic farm, sustainable living learning center, and seed center. Pun Pun is a small community of Thais and a couple international people, where we try to be a model for experimentation in sustainable living techniques and run a seed center for the conservation of rare and indigenous varieties. We practice organic farming techniques and are earthen builders as well. Next door to Pun Pun is “Panya Project”, an experimental permaculture center and “You Sabaii” hosting Thai cooking courses, a small earthen guesthouse and writers of a new magazine on sustainability.
  

Hosts

Click for more information: Jon Jandai, and Peggy Reents.

Living situation

Simple accommodation will be provided along with way at every place, primarily earthen or bamboo guesthouses, possibly camping in tents once or twice. Bedding will be provided but if you need anything special or more bedding than a thin futon mat, you should bring it yourself.

Meals will be shared and eaten with villagers or in communities. Vegetarian and fish options will be available and in organic farms we will eat as much local organic produce as possible.

Bathing will be provided mostly with a cool bucket shower or at times a dip in the pond.

Fee

$450 US/person. Fee includes all food, accommodation, and all transportation from Yasothorn town at the beginning of the trip to Chiang Mai at the end. You will be responsible for providing your own transportation to Yasothorn town and from Chiang Mai city. Proceeds go towards supporting villagers projects we will visit and towards support Pun Pun community to grow and continue with our work.

Registration

1) Email Peggy Reents at pareents@yahoo.com.
2) Once you have been in contact with us, a $150 US non-refundable deposit is due to secure your spot. You can send this deposit by check addressed to:

Peggy Reents
Re: Sustainability Study Trip
3405 El Caminito
Loveland, CO 80537 USA

3) The remainder of your contribution will be expected on the first day of the study trip in Yasothorn in US dollars or Thai baht.

For more information
Contact pareents@yahoo.com
Visit www.punpunthailand.org