Graduated by the AIP – Accademia Italiana di Permacultura – in 2006, Barbara Garofoli organizes in 2013 the first PDC in French-speaking side of Switzerland with the collaboration of Fondation Ecojardinage.
Since then, she has been working in collaboration with the AIP and Robin Clayfield to promote and disseminate permaculture in Switzerland.
In 2013 a group of students began their Action Learning Pathway with her as a tutor and between 2017 and 2018, the first diplomas were awarded by the AIP. Four Swiss apprentices of Barbara Garofoli, including Pierre-Alain Indermühle and Hélène Bougouin, who followed a PDC with Barbara Garofoli and Saviana Parodi from AIP, graduated from the Accademia Italiana di Permacultura.
In 2018 the Swiss Permaculture Academy was created, thanks to Barbara Garofoli, Pierre-Alain Indermühle, Elena Parmiggiani (diplomats) and Paul Jeannet, Vanessa Khöli, Etienne Maillat, Rebecca Thompson (in Action learning Pathway). The AIP has always supported the creation of the ASP and the Associazione di Permacultura della Svizzera Italiana has been part of the ASP since its inception.
Currently the ASP has a dozen students involved in the Action Learning Pathway. To support them, we offer an Action Learning Manual and a list of tutors and regularly organize Plenary Sessions to network students, apprentices and graduates.
We are committed to co-creating an interconnected structure with all permaculture institutions in Europe that accepts the different visions of all stakeholders involved in the permaculture movement in Switzerland.