liberian women for peace: photo by cynthia travis

Our focus for 2011 will be on ex-combatants, especially in vul-nerable and volatile border areas. With post-election unrest in two of Liberia’s closest neighbors, Ivory Coast and Guinea,

maintaining calm among Liberian ex-combatants is more important than ever so that they are not encouraged to return to fighting. This ur-gency is magnified by the fact that Liberia’s next elections will be held in October 2011. If the forces of corruption and trauma prevail, vio-lence could return to Liberia and easily spread throughout the sub-region.

There are still thousands of traumatized and hungry former fighters, uneducated and restless, and understandably impatient for solutions to the hardships of daily life. In recent months, many ex-combatants have begun illegally mining gold and diamonds in wilderness areas. These attacks on the natural world are a vivid expression of despera-tion and trauma, not unlike the ex-combatants raping women and machine-gunning hippos and other animals in the Congo. Destruc-tion of nature echoes all forms of violence against women. This is why the healing of the land and the healing of the human communi-ty are so closely linked. In our permaculture work, through restoring and re-storying the land and the people together, both can flourish.

In Liberia, as in other, once land-based cultures, the living are not the only ones who are hungry. The desire for connection, community and feeding are understood to be necessary for the dead as well, allow-ing those who have perished to find their way to a peaceful afterlife in which they can be of assistance to the living. This understanding is a common refrain in towns and villages and in the national media. Mourning feasts are held to honor the dead for just this reason.

Recent talk shows have highlighted a rising belief among Liberians of many different backgrounds that the dead must be attended to more fully, bring-ing us to wonder whether a national cycle of mourning feasts, like those everyday gandhis sponsored in Voinjama in 2004, would be timely. During that first mourning feast, over 5,000 people participated peacefully, mourn-ing together, resolving conflicts and sending those conflicts ‘across the river’ with the dead to find a final resting place. Subsequent mourning feasts helped ‘cross’ and ‘feed’ deceased medicine people, youth, and women, as well as tending to the forests, rivers and land. Collective healing requires collective grieving, bringing a renewed sense of community and uniting people in a common purpose.

Rebuilding Bridges to Peaceby cynthia travis

ISSUE VII • WINTER 2010/11

continued on page 3

everyday gandhis Peace Archiveby danelia wild

We have just launched the everyday gandhis Peace Archive on our web-site. The archive is one way we are working to restore and re-story our common heritage of peacebuilding by gathering, tending and dissemi-nating stories of indigenous, innovative, and interdependent relation-ships of healing and restoration.

The Archive is envisioned as a repository of everyday wisdom and ac-tions, as a resource of living traditions of peacebuilding and restora-tion, where Story is a medicine that can heal. Where the stories them-selves can begin to do their own work in the world.

Story is our birthright.  As a species we have been telling each other stories since the first circle gathered around the first fire under a field of stars in the deep night. We tell stories to remind ourselves who we are, and of what we dream and cherish and the stories carry the DNA of our resiliency and our drive to heal ourselves, our communities and the natural world. 

This archive holds stories of recrimination and reconciliation, of con-flict and peacemaking, of violations and amends, of devastation and renewal - between and among people, communities, nature and the sa-cred - stories that are found at the heart of peacebuilding and restoration.

These are stories told one to one, or in small circles in Africa, or in neighborhoods in the United States, and across the world - wherever people are working to mirror and catalyze the wisdom of an individual or community (including the natural world) and restore its intrinsi-cally sustainable authentic nature.

The collection includes written material, interviews, video clips, and photographs from the archive of materials gathered in our work. They will be accessible on our website, on video and in print and via emails. Making these stories and images available is one way we seek to honor the sacred, the living, the ancestors, future beings and all of Creation.

Our prayer is that the experience of gathering, receiving, accessing and passing on these stories and images will be as healing as the process of telling them and being heard. Our hope is that they will awaken and sustain the peacemaker within us all and remind us that we are insepa-rable from the Web of Life.

May we all find ways to listen to each other deeply and find the paths to peace and restoration.

Danelia Wild is the Peace Archivist for everyday gandhis

Table of ContentsRebuilding Bridges to Peace 1 by cynthia travisOur focus for 2011 will be on ex-combatants, espe-cially in the vulnerable and volatile border areas of Liberia… maintaining calm among the former fighters is more important than ever.

everyday gandhis Peace Archiveby danelia wild 2 The archive is one way we are working to restore and re-story our common heritage of peacebuilding by gathering, tending and disseminating stories.

Permaculture Training Day 4by lassana kamaraThe training covered an introduction to permacul-ture, which is a word that combines the meaning of sustainably permanent agriculture and sustainably permanent culture.

Permaculture Certification Course 5 by warren brushThis next summer everyday gandhis is hosting a Permaculture Design Certification course in Liberia at the prestigious Ricks Institute, just outside of the nation’s capital of Monrovia.

everyday gandhis Year-End Report 6by cynthia travisLiberia’s hidden stories of peacemaking have shown us a whole universe of possibility we hadn’t known existed and could never have set out to find.

Help Us Grow Our Circle!a year-end appeal 8

Over the holiday season, let your friends and family know about everyday gandhis and the work that we do. By growing our community we can continue working to restore our common heritage of peacebuilding.

THE PALAVER HUT • ISSUE VII • WINTER 2010/11

2 • everyday gandhis • winter 2010/2011

A recent dream from one of our staff, himself a former fighter, rein-forces this understanding:

I went into a town and saw a group of people sitting there, saying they were not satisfied. I asked, Why? They said, We are all dead but the problem is some of us did not eat before coming to this place. We are trying to cross the river. They are putting logs across the river in order to make a bridge, but without success. I tried to help them but I / they couldn’t cross. I recognize my late father. He says he’s hungry. He has not eaten since he died. He has no shirt. I try again to help rebuild the bridge of logs. An old man sees me and says, ‘You can’t help them. They themselves have to show you how to do it. No human flesh can help them. They will tell you what to do but you can’t do it for them.’ My former commander says, ‘I am hungry!’ All of the others say they want to get to the other side of the river where there is plenty of food. The old man says again, ‘They will give you an idea of how to do this but [you] cannot do it [by] yourself.’

In recent months, elephants have once again been making their pres-ence known in Liberia. Although elephants have long been under-stood among traditional people to be signs of peace, their presence nonetheless causes fear and frustration, especially when farms are damaged or people are injured. Since many of us with everyday gan-dhis have had experiences of elephant contact in which their contact was clearly deliberate, we must ask ourselves how to understand the reappearance of elephants now, as Liberia - and the West African sub-region - teeters between peace and violence.

As in other parts of Africa, human encroachment on elephant habi-tat puts untenable pressure on the elephants, who are unable to cross busy highways to find sanctuary in more remote forests. Elephants and other protected species are mercilessly and illegally hunted for

numerous reasons including hunger, ignorance and lack of enforce-ment and viable alternatives. Modernity has pre-empted inter-rela-tionship with greed. And as they say in Liberia, ‘A hungry man is an angry man.’

Over the past several years, dreamers in many villages have consis-tently said that the elephants and the dead were warning that they – and we – were suffering because people were not behaving respect-fully towards each other, the dead, the animals or the land. Regardless of the cultural context, the message is consistent locally, and globally. The signs are everywhere, from extreme weather to marauding elephants. Ex-combatants, traditional communities and many local government officials recognize this and are taking steps to respond. In the field, everyday gandhis staff working with ex-combatants, find that they are eager to sit down to share stories and ideas and to learn about perma-culture and peacemaking.

What we in the West do not yet see is that we, too, are traumatized, driven mad by violence and greed. We, too, are clawing the earth for diamonds and gold, causing beautiful animals to perish and imperil-ing ourselves in the process. As the dream tells us, none of us can repair the bridge by ourselves, and we cannot do it for someone else. What we can do is listen to those that are hungry, listen to our own hearts and to each other, and rebuild the bridges together.

Cynthia Travis is the Founder & President of everyday gandhis.

continued from cover united nations in voinjama: photo by andre lambertson

future guardians of peace: photo by morris kamara

everyday gandhis • winter 2010/2011 • 3

Permaculture Training Day in Voinjamaby lassana kamara

In September, everyday gandhis held a Permaculture workshop in Lofa County for staff and representatives of nearby communities. Participants included residents of Looking Town, Kuluka, Kissi

Quarty, Telbomai Community and Voinjama. The workshop was held at the everyday gandhis Guest House in Voinjama.

The training covered an introduction to permaculture, which is a word that combines the meaning of sustainably permanent agriculture and sustainably permanent culture. The training included permaculture techniques and strategies for designing systems modeled on the rela-tionships found in natural ecologies, how swale systems and mulching function, and how to make compost and establish a garden based on the cycle of the banana tree. In addition to learning general project design and specific ways to maximize water conservation, participants explored the relationship between care of the earth and the health of the people.

In the second part of the training, students were shown how the prin-ciples were implemented at the everyday gandhis Guest House and the permaculture demonstration garden on the land adjacent to it. A vari-ety of crops are grown on the land, including banana, pineapple, bitter-ball (melon), yams, sweet potatoes, papaya and peppers.

The combination of the poster-board presentation and the garden work gave the participants a grounding both in the principles of perma-culture and the practical work involved in implementing it. Through-out the training, participants asked questions and discussed the work, thereby deepening their understanding of the cultural aspects involved in permaculture and agricultural systems. The group also explored how to put into practice the information gained in the workshop and how to use it to help others in their communities.

By the end of the workshop, the community representatives and every-day gandhis Voinjama team members agreed to do small permaculture demonstration sites at the homes of some of the participants.

everyday gandhis team member Hawa was appointed to supervise the first small demonstration garden and to encourage more women to participate in the project. In some areas of Liberia, women ex-com-batants and others who were forced to become “bush wives” of fighters

during the civil war, have resorted to prostitution in order to provide for their families. Small permaculture “kitchen gardens” are a sustain-able, life-affirming alternative.

The everyday gandhis Voinjama team is also in the planning stage of a plant nursery in Voinjama to help in the permaculture project, and of a well-pro-tection project to safeguard common water supplies from contamination.

Lassana Kamara is everyday gandhis' field supervisor

children at the well: photo by andre lambertson

permaculture training: photo from everyday gandhis archive

permaculture participant: photo from everyday gandhis archive

4 • everyday gandhis • winter 2010/2011

The last time I was in Liberia, president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf shared on UNMIL radio, which is listened to nationally, that, "for Liberia to never again go to war; for Liberia to be truly

resilient in the face of economic unrest; for Liberians to be healthy and stable in their communities…there is one thing we can do: That is for each family to grow a garden!"  It was the first time I had ever heard a president of a country tell her people they need to grow a garden in order for their country to have a healthy future. Although gardening may not raise Liberia’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), in her grand-

motherly wisdom, Johnson Sirleaf understands that most, if not all the problems of the world (and certainly Liberia's) can be solved in a garden.

This next summer everyday gandhis is hosting a Permaculture Design Certification course in Liberia at the prestigious Ricks Institute, just outside of the nation’s capital of Monrovia. This 72-hour intensive course delves into all aspects of sustainable human settlement and leaves participants with an important design tool-kit for their com-munities and for communities worldwide. Local and international students will work side by side as they learn how to design and apply ethics and principles that lead to stability and sustainability.

I will be teaching the course along with Loren Lyundyk of Surfing Without Borders. Quail Springs Permaculture and True Nature De-sign will also be partnering with everyday gandhis in this course.

Ricks Institute is an ideal place to host the course not only because many of the country’s top government officials send their children there, but because it is located on 1100 acres just 20 minutes from Government offices. By having the course there, we will have an op-portunity to share a different way of looking at national rebuilding, one that considers a triple bottom line, in which health is measured not just in economic terms, but also in environmental and social terms.

We hope that those of you who are reading this newsletter and are interested in taking a Permaculture Design Course will consider taking the course in Liberia with us. Your tuition will help subsidize a local student to take the course for free.  

The course will be held from August 8th to the 21st, 2011. The cost for an international student is $950, which includes meals, simple lodging

and instruction. It does not cover travel or transportation. For further information for both international and local Liberian students, please contact Ana Brush at ana@everydaygandhis.org or at 001-805-966-9300 for tuition and scholarship information.

If you cannot attend the course, but wish to donate to this inaugural event in support of a peaceful Liberia and a sustainable world, please visit www.everydaygandhis.org and go to the “Donate Now” page, con-tact us by email at info@everydaygandhis.org, or at 805-966-9300.

about the instructors

Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer and educator as well as a mentor and storyteller. He has worked for over 20 years in inspiring people of all ages to discover, nurture and express their inherent gifts while living in a sustainable manner. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis & Permaculture Farm (a few of their offerings include: Permaculture Design Certification courses for Youth called Sustainable Vocations, PDC for Adults and Sustainable Aid Courses among many other offerings), Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and Trees for Children. He works extensively in Permaculture education and sustainable systems design in North America and in Africa through his design firm, True Nature Design. He can be reached through email at w@quailsprings.org or by calling his office at 805-886-7239.

Loren Luyendyk was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. He has spent a lot of time traveling the world in search of new waves and new adventures. A lifetime surfer, he was inspired to create Surf-ers Without Borders (www.surferswithoutborders.org) to address the issue of ocean pollution through Permaculture and sustainable design. Loren has a degree in Biology from UCSB, and has stud-ied sustainability and horticulture extensively. He now lives on the Gaviota Coast at the Orella Ranch (www.orellaranch.com), where he participates in and hosts sustainable design workshops. He also runs a local sustainable landscape design business called Santa Barbara Organics (www.sborganics.com).

www.permaculturedesign.us www.quailsprings.org www.mentoring4peace.com www.truenaturedesign.net

Permaculture Certification Course in Monrovia, Liberiaby warren brush

ricks institute: photo by andre lambertson

everyday gandhis • winter 2010/2011 • 5

In 1999, I met extraordinary peacebuilders from around the world who inspired me to found everyday gandhis in order to tell their sto-ries. In the most violent places in the news, there are countless ordi-

nary people devoted to peacemaking whose stories are never heard. In-stead of seeing desperation and crisis in the world’s countless conflicts, we can look instead for the wisdom and beauty behind the headlines.

Liberia’s hidden stories of peacemaking have shown us a whole uni-verse of possibility we hadn’t known existed and could never have set out to find. We have learned so much:

• Healing the human community is inseparable from the healing of the natural world.

• Traditional culture can create a reconciliation process that is much more far-reaching than what linear negotiations can accomplish.

• War-torn areas have three things in common: 1) they tend to be resource rich; 2) they have vibrant traditional cultures that threat-en institutional power and corrupt leaders; and, 3) they were once colonized and suffer from multi-generational trauma.

• Child soldiers and inner city at-risk youth have much in common, including unusual intelligence, creativity, compassion, leadership and wisdom.

• Local people have the resources and solutions to solve their own problems and need only small, strategic gestures of help rather than massive aid programs.

• The story of the land, its desecration and healing, is part of the continuum of stories that empower and sustain people in recovery from war.

• Former fighters can become gifted and dedicated peacemakers.

• Elephants and other animals, along with the spirits of the dead, are reaching out to humans to help us learn the ways of peacemaking.

• Dreams are more reliable than linear thinking for insights and planning.

• It can take years to understand, or even see, the real story.

• Miracles happen all the time.

everyday gandhis 2010 Year-End Report by cynthia travis

culture troupe: photo from everyday gandhis archive

6 • everyday gandhis • winter 2010/2011

This year alone, we have accomplished so much. In February, everyday gandhis presented our film, The Dead Will Guide Us: teachings from Liberia’s civil war, in three separate screenings at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. After the film, Bill Saa, everyday gandhis’ former Liberia Coordinator, and I spoke with members of the com-munity, answering questions and speaking about peacebuilding, its re-lationship to Liberia and to the world.

That same month, we responded to the outbreak of violence in Voin-jama by bringing first-aid, food, phone cards, and other supplies to help some of those affected. Christian Bethelson, our Liberian Youth Coordinator, met with Mandingo and Lorma youths to remind them of the importance of keeping the peace, and to hold an open dialogue of expression for all parties. everyday gandhis staff has been working with the local government officials in Voinjama, with the National Traditional Council and the UN as well as with village elders and rep-resentatives of ex-combatant and women’s groups to sustain peace and ongoing dialogue.

In June, Bethelson and everyday gandhis’ Liberia Coordinator William Jacobs returned to the U.S. to honor Bethelson in the U.S. commu-nity for his work with ex-combatants, his own internal healing, and his choice to become a peacemaker. Both Jake and Bethelson also gave presentations at universities and organizations in Southern California

that explored the topics of victim, perpetrator, and the choice to be-come a peacemaker.

In July, everyday gandhis put on the Liberian Independence Day Games. Sustaining peace and building relationships were the underlying themes of this cele-bration. Youth from several coun-ties joined together to participate in activities fostering integrity and soul repair. Through soccer and kickball, we strengthened communal bonds that are often tested in times of ethnic and re-ligious conflict. Scores of people attended the event.

In September, everyday gandhis presented photography from the Future Guardians of Peace for the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s “First Thursday” event to raise money and aware-ness for the soccer and kickball tournament during Liberia’s In-dependence Day. The event suc-ceeded in educating the Santa Barbara public about the program activities we facilitate. During the event, we raised a small sum of money and spoke with dozens of people about our organization.

This year, we have also completed our latest documentary film, a 20-minute piece entitled Portrait of a Peacekeeper, which is a ‘day in the life’ of legendary Pakistani peacekeeper Col. Raza who served in Libe-ria just after the end of the civil war.

In several border towns, including Voinjama, Ganta and Sarkon-edu, Bethelson, Jake and everyday gandhis staff have been organizing soccer and kickball games that engage the youth and community in peacebuilding. These games are accompanied by a workshop that Jake teaches called “Healthy Relationships,” and by permaculture teachings, dream circles and councils.

Bethelson and eg staff continue to visit volatile border towns such as Ganta, Sarkonadu and Barkedu to continue educating the people about the prevention of HIV-AIDS, prostitution, drug addiction, and mercenary recruitment. Using open circles of dialogue, eg team mem-bers discuss peaceful solutions with community elders, women, con-cerned youth, and local government officials.

A Permaculture Certification course is scheduled for August, 2011 at prestigious Ricks Institute, creating a demonstration site there. The course participants will include international students, NGOs and Liberian government officials. An informal permaculture training was conducted in Voinjama to train the local work force, including mem-bers of the everyday gandhis to maintain our permaculture demonstra-tion site in Voinjama.

Our focus in the coming year is on three critical areas for ex-com-batants: literacy, soccer, and permaculture. Our scholarship fund will cover a range of educational opportunities from elementary school through university. Students are carefully selected and monitored, and in exchange for school fees, uniforms and food are expected to volun-teer as peacemakers in their communities. We will continue our Peace Ambassadors soccer program and expand it to reach more communi-ties. Scholarships for permaculture training will allow ex-combatants to sustain themselves and their communities through sustainable agri-culture. We also look to complete the documentary film on the Future Guardians of Peace, the story of the healing and transformation of our first six ex-combatant ‘sons’ - and Bethelson, their former commander - as they have become peacemakers; disseminate and ground the stories and insights of our years of fieldwork; and to launch the international permaculture training in August 2011 at Ricks Institute.

Cynthia Travis is the Founder & President of everyday gandhis.voinjama’s 1st mourning feast: photo from everyday gandhis archive

everyday gandhis • winter 2010/2011 • 7

everyday gandhisph: 805.966.9300 • fax: 805.966.9301 • www.everydaygandhis.orgeveryday gandhis is a California 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation.

All donations are tax-deductable as provided by law. ©2010 everyday gandhis project inc. All rights reserved.Design & Layout by Jesse Smith • www.ablacksmithdesigncompany.com

• Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper •

To:

Help us to grow our circle!Over the holiday season, let your friends and family know about everyday gandhis and the work that we do. Encourage them to join our mailing and email lists (their information will never be shared with third parties). Like you, new supporters will receive our quarterly newsletter and announcements for upcoming events and film screenings. Please send contact information to info@everydaygandhis.org.

Donate to our Scholarship Fund!Our focus in the coming year is on three critical areas for ex-combatants: literacy, soccer, and permaculture. Your donation to our scholarship fund will cover a range of educational opportunities from elementary school through university. Students are carefully selected and monitored, and in exchange for school fees, uniforms and food are expected to volunteer as peacemakers in their communities. Scholarships will also be given to students who demonstrate need for and interest in the International Permaculture Certification Course to be held at Ricks Institute in August 2011.

With the holidays upon us, there is so much to be grateful for. We honor and thank you for your support of everyday gandhis’ work in creating a peaceful, more sustainable world.