About me
I have been practising Permaculture in Bristol since 2002, working with others to create spaces where people can live sustainably, relax, grow food, share, co-operate and work together. I am interested in inspiring and supporting people to make practical changes in their lives and within their neighbourhoods, particularly in urban and suburban areas where small changes can have such a massive impact. I am still constantly amazed at how much people can easily acheive by working together whilst also having a great time.
My background is in community food growing, having trained and worked as an Organic market gardener at the HHEAG Community Market Garden. The garden was set up on an abandoned allotment site in the Hartcliffe estate in 2002, and offers local people informal education in growing food, tools, practical support, whilst producing affordable organic fruit and veg in an area that was a food desert.
Since then I have worked and volunteered at several community gardens and school grounds in Bristol, in particular, Windmill Hill City Farm, where I have worked on and off since 2000 and now teach Permaculture courses. In 2005 I also started the annual Bristol Seed Swap with David Prebelski to try to encourage people to start saving seed in the city.
I have been facilitating courses since 2003 and started teaching in 2004. I first studied Permaculture with the incredibly inspiring Mike Feingold, who has spent his life encouraging ordinary folk all around the world to take a Permaculture approach and dramatically improve their lives. Mike and Sarah Pugh convinced and helped me to start teaching and I have tried to incorporate popular education ideas into my teaching to make learning about Permaculture interactive, participatory, practical and fun.
I have also studied a Permaculture full design course with Penny Livingston-Stark and Starhawk, and with Patrick Whitefield as part of the three month residential Sustainable Land Use course. I am an active member of Bristol Permaculture Group, Somewhere Co-operative Housing and Living Land Co-operative Ltd and love working and hanging out at our shared allotments/forest garden. Lastly, but most importantly, I am also the mother of the very lovely Ivor Wilson.
Members of Somewhere Housing Co-operative enjoying a meeting to discuss energy-usage
[...] Ruth O’Brien is an incredible teacher with a marvelous aptitude for making her students feel like they have discovered the way to make a huge difference in the world which so many of us are told we are harming so horribly but seem to never be told how to begin to fix the problems we are causing. Ruth clearly leads a life based on the values taught through permaculture and helps others to see the simple way in which everything in nature and in life are interrelated and therefor just the smallest modifications in the way we do things have a great impact. [...]
Feeling upbeat and ready for change | Becoming Self Sufficient said this on July 19, 2009 at 10:38 pm