
What do children want? What does everyone need? Everyone needs healthy food, water and air. Everyone needs to be loved and belong to a community, security and peace. This is why permaculture is about both food and community. It uses what comes naturally to us to create food (natural energies such as gravity, wind, solar) and it uses what comes naturally to us as social beings (co-operation, invention, inspiration from nature and the essential skill of observation). A lot of young people today feel disempowered. They see war against people and against the earth. They see news about climate change and they see areas that were once fertile and lush, now barren and poor. Even areas in the 1st world are being destroyed by commercial projects. Creeks, waterways and catchments are being cracked by fracking and mining. It is a scary future for us all. Building empowerment is urgent. People need to feel that they can do things to escape the consumption trap. Children can dream about being constructive advocates of a better world when we offer them good-news stories and role models.