The Integral PDC course will begin on January 8th, 2020, and end on January 24th, 2020.

There is also the option of staying on site another month doing volunteering work so you can implement more of the design projects and practice what you’ve learned during the course while saving on costs (your work would serve as an exchange for the food and accommodation).

Note that the Canary Islands have a subtropical climate, and this part of the island is particularly warm, so rainy days are very rare even in the winter, and the temperature stays around 15-20ºC most of the time. In fact, January and February here bring us an abundance of flowers, edible wild plants and many other beautiful forms of life all around, so it’s a lovely time of the year to be outside.

On the beautiful site of Manantial de Tara

An ecological farm and permaculture project / retreat center

It’s located in Arafo, on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands – Spanish territory in North Africa.

To get there, you will need to fly to either of the Tenerife airports, Tenerife North or Tenerife South – or if you prefer to come by boat, there are also two ports in the island, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Los Cristianos.

You can find more information about how to arrive here

We will be having a 100-hour+ PDC curriculum, with 2 theory classes per day plus practical farm work, design work and discussions, and some days of visiting other projects. At the same time, will keep some flexibility on the times and adapt the schedule so we can attend to each person and the group’s needs.

The course includes food and accommodation – you will be staying in the beautiful wooden cabins and yurts on site, and 3 vegetarian meals will be served every day (that can be individually adapted for vegan, gluten free and other diets), plus snacks and refreshments, and there’s also a simple outdoor kitchen you can use if you need to prepare anything else for yourself.

José Lorenzo Zamora

I was born in Cuba to an extended family of proud revolutionaries and farmers and then moved to the Canary Islands where I studied IT Systems Engineering and Permaculture. In 2011 I started teaching with the Integral Permaculture Academy and co-creating the 8thLife EcoVillage Project while collaborating with various other radical activist and grassroots organizations – all of which helped me cultivate a wide range of skills and amass more than 8 years of experience as a teacher in Permaculture, traditional skills and other fields.

In 2018 I started putting together all of my passions and teaching Permaculture with my own unique and authentic twist, and now offer these on-site Integral PDCs every year to empower others to create together a better future for all life.

What makes this course so special is that:

• This is an Integral PDC, going beyond traditional Permaculture:
  The focus here is truly sustainable and holistic design, so we’ll explore a wide range of fields not often found in PDCs – like personal development, group facilitation, finances and project planning – and also study the science of sustainability, general principles and design techniques, so you can apply what you learn here anywhere else in the world, and in your own projects.
• This course is designed for both novices and experienced PC designers:
  This curriculum is updated every year to include new advances and discoveries in Permaculture, so this will be full of fresh information even if if you’ve done other PDCs already. At the same time, we will still start from the basics, so you will be able to follow everything in the course even if this is all new to you, and there will be time for personal mentoring, both during and after the course, so we can talk about anything that needs more explanations or further discussion.
• It is hosted in a successful and established Permaculture project:
  Manantial de Tara is a Permaculture education project that has been running for over 10 years, has beautiful vegetable and forest gardens in the middle of a very desertic region, and is one of the best retreat centers in the whole of the Canary Islands, managing to be at the same time very environmentally friendly and also providing a level of comfort that’s not often found in Permaculture projects.
• You will be in a little sub-tropical oasis in the Atlantic ocean:
  In the Canary Islands you can enjoy warm and sunny weather and go to the beach even in the middle of winter. An added bonus is that, if you live in Europe or the US, you’ll be able to come back home ready to develop your own projects and design your gardens before Spring begins.
• The teaching and support will come home with you:
  After the course, you will have access to a multimedia library with the classes (they will be recorded) and other materials, so you can review them anytime you want and also learn new things. And you will also have access to free long-term mentoring and support with your designs, so you can continue digging deeper in your training and apply it back home – which is quite unique for a PDC.

The total price of the course is 1165€, including food and accommodation in shared wooden cabins. There’s a 100€ discount for campers, if you bring your own tent.

Note that there are not many spaces available for this course, as we like to keep groups small in order to give more personal attention to each student, so if you’re interested in joining, send your registration ASAP to make sure you don’t miss on it!

To register, send your personal information (full name, address, email and telephone number) to jose@whitewynd.com