Earthcare Education Trust
Formed in 2001, EEA aims to empower people to make positive change using permaculture.
Institute of Earthcare Education Aotearoa is a non-profit Trust dedicated to the ethics and principles of sustainability through Permaculture.
Earthcare often partners with other organisations with compatible aims in delivering facilitation, education, design or consultancy services.
Kaupapa
Our mission is:
Recreating 'Right Relationship’ with all communities – respecting all life as sacred
Facilitating sustainable human settlements, where culture embraces nature
Restoring ecosystems whilst establishing food security
Objectives
We aim to:
Provide and promote education in environmental awareness, sustainable land use and responsible resource management.
Promote a wholistic approach to education by teaching the principles and practices of cooperation, community participation and sustainable culture.
Oromote, conduct and publish research and educational materials on sustainable systems.
Our Board
Robina McCurdy
For the past four decades, Robina has been engaged in community development, organic growing and wholistic education, embracing permaculture landuse design and deep ecology. She is pioneer-resident of 40 year-old Tui Community and Trust in Golden Bay, NZ. She pioneered ‘SEED’ (Schools Environmental Education and Development) - a cross-curricula global programme, which transforms school grounds into productive learnscapes, established in impoverished schools in Africa and Brazil. After SEED, she was employed by Victory Community Centre (Nelson) and also ‘Project Lyttelton’ (Christchurch), to establish food gardens, orchards and seed banks in local schools. In 2000, Robina founded ‘Earthcare’ as a vehicle for transformation, through facilitating interactive outcomes-based permaculture education with communities and their bioregions.
Founder
Charley Bradley
Trustee
Charley lived and worked on the Portuguese Azores Islands for many years, experiencing the joys and the challenges of a self sufficient village life. Now he resides in Tui Community, Golden Bay NZ, managing the land co-operatively. His background in Person-Centred Psychotherapy and community building, together with seventy-five years of extraordinary life experience, has equipped him well to help people to thrive in these times of challenge and transformation. Discouraged by working as a conventional pharmacist just fixing symptoms, Charley chose a wholistic and integrated approach to healing, training in psychotherapy (Person-centred Counselling), Compassionate Communication (NVC), Restorative Justice, Sociocracy and Permaculture. His commitment to fostering regenerative, community-driven solutions that promote personal and ecological well-being, upholds Earthcare’s goals to bring about positive sustaining change.
Redwood Reider
Trustee
Redwood (they/them) has worked in support of organic agriculture across Aotearoa for nearly two decades, managing organisational development, research and education projects for grower organisations, and editing and writing for organic and biodynamic publications. They hold a Masters in Environmental Science with a focus on social ecology and agroecosystems, and they love making compost and growing food. Redwood is also a natural health practitioner and a spoken word poet offering performances dedicated to healing ourselves and our relationships with the living earth.
Iona Gelf
Trustee
Iona has an extensive background in agriculture and permaculture. She is an avid organic vegetable grower, chicken-mama, goat-mama/milker, cheesemaker, seedsaver, food-forester and wildcrafter of herbs. Iona delights in sharing her knowledge of these skills with others, mostly on the family farm in Golden Bay. She has a huge heart for creating and sustaining thriving community through practical initiatives, and regularly engages in the democratic political process by making written and oral submissions to foster social justice and environmental protection.