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permacrafters

We are Cristina & Christelle, the founders of the Eco-Citizen School. We became friends through our shared love of permaculture. When Christelle’s daughter Luna was born, the 3 of us started adventuring in home DIY projects. What started as fun afternoons crafting together turned into Permacrafters, a full-blown online sustainability school. Watch our story. Our mission is to share self-reliance skills and encourage creative permaculture thinking for an abundant life.

Meet us

CRISTINA ROJAS

CRISTINA ROJAS

Explorer • Lover • Crafter

Cristina is an outgoing Peruvian entrepreneur who loves meeting new people, exploring her surroundings, growing sprouts at home, doing pottery, and creating recipes from scratch. After completing two permaculture courses (Permaculture Design Certificate and Permaculture Foundations Course) at The Eco-Institute, she decided to have a career change to focus on environmental protection. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (BBA), specialized in retail management and business ethics. She leads the web-design, marketing, and crafting projects.

CHRISTELLE SIOHAN

CHRISTELLE SIOHAN

Traveler • Jokester • Treehugger

Christelle is a bubbly environmental educator and permaculture instructor who infuses optimism in her classes and laughs at her own jokes. Originally from Geneva, Switzerland, her studies and career have focused on environmental protection. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies, an MA in Natural Resources & Sustainable Development. She has worked for environmental nonprofits including the United Nations Environment Program, Greenpeace, World Wild Fund for Nature, OneAction, and the Eco-Institute. She’s multilingual, a mama (or “Permamacita”), a beekeeper, and a foraging enthusiast with an insatiable curiosity for life.  

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Permacrafters?
We love pouring our creativity into all aspects of our lives, with sustainability in mind. We enjoy handcrafting our own body products, cleaners, herbal medicine, decorations, and tools, and we have fun growing our favorite foods and preparing them right at home. The guiding ethics and principles of permaculture help us in designing our crafts and our lives.
What is permaculture?
Permaculture is an ethical design system for sustainable human culture. It was created as a response to Earth’s diminishing resources and energy. This system of agricultural and social design principles is focused on imitating patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems. The principles are whole-systems thinking tools that we can use all together to creatively design our environment and our behavior.

Permaculture is not a collection of techniques: use the principles and apply them accordingly based on your specific situation. As you design your life within the framework of permaculture, you will develop new skills and build resilience.

What are the permaculture ethics and principles?
The permaculture ethics and principles, as outlined by David Holmgren, the co-founder of Permaculture, are the following:

3 Ethics:

  •      Care for the Earth
  •      Care for People
  •      Fair Share

These ethics are the foundation upon which permaculture is built and they guide us in applying the 12 principles.

12 Principles:

  •      Observe and Interact
  •      Catch and Store Energy
  •      Obtain a Yield
  •      Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
  •      Use and value renewable resources and services
  •      Produce no waste
  •      Design from pattern to details
  •      Integrate rather than segregate
  •      Use small and slow solutions
  •      Use and value diversity
  •      Use edges and value the marginal
  •      Creatively use and respond to change

These principles are universally applicable guidelines for designing regenerative habitats and designing our lives. These principles help inspire us to recreate ever-present patterns in nature. To better understand how to integrate the permaculture principles into your life, we demonstrate with each blog post project how we are applying the principles. For more information on the principles, click here.

I don't like gardening or landscaping - is permaculture for me?
Yes. You can integrate permaculture in all aspects of your life. Permaculture is not simply a form of organic gardening. Permaculture is concerned with responsibly providing human needs from nature, so growing food is indeed an important part of the equation. However, one of the reasons permaculture has been redefined from “permanent agriculture” to “sustainable culture” is because not everyone has access to land, and everyone has their own strengths. The objective remains becoming a productive citizen, as opposed to a dependent consumer, but perhaps your personal focus won’t be on growing food, but supporting your community growers and developing your own strength, which may well be herbal medicine making or natural building. Permaculture can be applied to all areas of your life, or the 7 domains as outlined here in Holmgren’s Permaculture Flower. That being said, we do encourage you to grow food – however small the amount!
Where and when do you offer workshops?
We currently offer workshops online all year round! Click here to learn about the courses you can take and which ones are open for enrollment.
Do you offer workshops in other languages?
Yes! Some of our workshops are available in French and Spanish as well as English.