Sabina Arokiam
After graduating in Fine Arts, Sabina was involved with several initiatives that used media and theatre to empower the young and the marginalised. It was only in 2006 that she came across the concept of Permaculture while browsing the internet, and it resonated with the kind of community and environment that she wanted to build and live in. She looked for courses and initiatives in Malaysia, but there were none on the ground at that time. So she planted her first Permaculture seed. It was a seed of intention … to someday, hopefully in the very near future, be able to do a Permaculture Design Course abroad.
Two years later, Sabina was invited by the US government to participate in the International Visitor Leadership Program. Based on her previous engagements with various NGO’s, she was fully sponsored for a 3 week exposure designed around her interest in Permaculture & community development. She travelled to 6 different states in the US and visited amazing projects, and spoke to people behind the scenes. Before going back to Malaysia, she attended a Permaculture and Ecovillage Design Course at Lost Valley, Oregon, from September – October 2008.
In early 2009, Sabina moved back to her home town in Batu Arang where she found a farm house (with 1 acre of attached land) for rent, and began to put what she had learnt into practice. When one of her co-teachers from the US, Doug Crouch volunteered to come and teach a PDC, she jumped at the opportunity and in April 2009, the first ever PDC in Malaysia was held at her place in Embun Pagi. 6 months later, her first volunteer, Juergen appeared at her doorstep, and has since joined her in pioneering Permaculture in Malaysia.
Exactly two years after its conception, Embun Pagi, the Permaculture education & demonstration site that Juergen and Sabina work on full time, has organised 3 PDC’s, and certified 20 Malaysians and 40 international students in Permaculture Design. With very little resources the duo have managed to transform their 1-acre site into a small-scale intensive system for residential living. They harvest their own rainwater for domestic and irrigation use, recycle grey-water and have retrofitted a conventional toilet into a composting toilet. Living in an area of abundant rainfall they have also created a small aquaculture system, including a fish pond and taro-culture. A kitchen garden and a number of trees provide fresh vegetables, herbs and fruits. The house, which had been abandoned for many years has been renovated into an education facility with a classroom, dorm, bathing and dining area, as well as outdoor seating with a cob oven, a fireplace and the daily company of diverse wildlife. Sabina hopes that ‘Permaculture’ will one day be a household term in Malaysia … and even further in time, perhaps it will be so deeply integrated into peoples’ lives, that there will be no need for a name, or a PDC.
