Teachers
Sébastien Bacharach, originally from France, is an Eco-logical Educator, Community Builder and Web Architect. He is the former Education Director of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG) and co-founder of the San Francisco Permaculture Guild. Sébastien became certified as a permaculture designer in the spring of 2001, at the Permaculture Research Institute, New South Wales, Australia, by internationally renowned PRI Director Geoff Lawton. He trained as a Permaculture Teacher in 2004 at Ocean Song, California. He has applied his knowledge in many different settings, in France and especially in San Francisco, California.
Sébastien is very involved in his local community of Perth, Ontario. Amongst other projects, he is a part of the steering group of Transition Perth. Sébastien strongly believes in holistic ways of thinking, whole systems design and applies these principles in his personal life and his work.
Douglas Barnes is a permaculture designer, consultant and teacher. He has designed and implemented permaculture systems in Japan and Canada as well as consulted on projects in Japan, Canada, India and Australia. He has taught permaculture seminars in Japan and Canada and is in the process of becoming a certified permaculture teacher qualified to teach the 72-hour design certificate course.
Douglas holds two Permaculture Design Course certificates: one from a course taught by Geoff and Danial Lawton in Brisbane, Australia in 2004 and one from a course taught by Geoff Lawton and permaculture founder Bill Mollison in Melbourne the following year. Douglas has been active in permaculture since 2004 and has been an educator for 16 years.
Bonita Ford has a Permaculture Diploma with l'Université Populaire de Permaculture in France, an M.A. in Holistic Health Education from JFK University in California, and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Queen's University in Ontario. Bonita took an Introduction to Permaculture with Brock Dolman in 2002, and took her first Permaculture Design Course through Urban Permaculture Guild and Oakland Permaculture Institute in California from 2005 to 2006. Shortly thereafter, she directed and co-facilitated one of the first Urban Permaculture Design Courses in the San Francisco Bay Area. She did work exchange with permaculture teachers Steve Read, Andy Darlington and Jessie Darlington in France. In 2011, she was a teaching assistant in a Permaculture Design Course in Haiti, taught by Larry Santoyo and Hunter Heaivilin. In Haiti, she also created a training program and trained a group of over 40 teachers, community facilitators and agronomists in basic concepts from permaculture and Nonviolent Communication. Bonita is a co-founder of Transition Perth and the Permaculture Institute of Eastern Ontario.
Bonita has led workshops and groups worldwide for over eight years, including in Port-au-Prince, Budapest, Soweto, San Francisco, Seattle, New Mexico, Vermont, Toronto, Ottawa and Perth. In her workshops and individual coaching, she blends permaculture, Nonviolent Communication, and body-centred learning. Bonita is passionate about personal, social and ecological transformation.