Appropriate Technology Cultural Incubator
Jared & Lala Williams
Hudson Valley Urban Homestead – to develop small-scale community-integrated systems around waste collection, composting, small livestock, forest garden and biodigester resources, cycling surplus yields through local schools and Boys/Girls Club programs. 0.8 acre riparian site.
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Lala Montoya Heredia Williams is an Artist, permaculture-Mother, and a culture cultivator who uses permaculture to teach, practice and learn much of the necessary skills to develop a regenerative culture. She is rooted in upstate NY and those roots are traced back to Colombia, where she was born and raised. At the core of her Work are the 3 permaculture Ethics:
-Care for the Earth is practiced by tending gardens and food forests through Kingston and Saugerties NY. and their composting project which takes compost from neighbors and local restaurants to build soil!
-Care for the People which she practices through creating connections and making education available to all people, eliminating economic barriers.
-Sharing comes alive throughout the year by giving away free seedlings for starting gardens, growing and giving food away for free as part of their belief of food as a human right and using that food as an educational tool.
Jared Williams has interests, including: Permaculture, Natural Building, Arborist, and Cultural Development. Born and raised in the Hudson Valley, Jared has returned to his roots in observing and relating to nature and the wisdom of elders, after studying Art and Design in New York City. Jared has devoted his life to the cultural shift which is gaining traction in many ways. He is involved in a local tree-roots organization called The LongSpoon Collective (LSC) and The Edge Project, which aim to grow food and share it equally as a human right, involving and activating the local Saugerties culture and landscape, turning monoculture lawns back into food-producing plots once again. He is very excited to connect with other youth doing amazing work on a local scale and learn from this conference overall!
Jared + Lala have spent the last 6 years developing an understanding of what their passions are, and how to be of service and relevance to our community in these times of necessary reconnection to Mother Earth. To do this, Jared and Lala are cultivating an exciting new project called The Edge Project, an initiative which will push the edges of art, food, and culture.
For the contest, Jared and Laura submitted a design for expanding their “share-stead” (sharing homestead), the Edge Project. The Edge Project uses resilient, informative designs of food, energy, and cultural systems which can easily be replicated.
Plans for the project include:
-Developing a community compost program in which compost from 5 local restaurants and many neighbors feed onsite chickens, pigs and a Biodigestor;
-Installing a 500-gallon rain catch system to hydrate the greenhouse, propagation nursery, and swales daily to lessen the use of electricity for irrigation, and provide water in times of drought; and
-Upgrading the current rocket stoves with the food waste bio-digester that collects methane, adding to their renewable fuel sources and also producing a vibrant fertilizer for their gardens and their community.