Anne-Marie Mayer
CO-FOUNDER
Kate Swatridge
CO-FOUNDER
Anne-Marie is a nutrition and agriculture consultant working on research, design and training for sustainable development. She has extensive experience on links between agriculture and nutrition, particularly in the global south and is passionate about sustainable solutions for both. She has worked in academia, non-government other international organisations on research, design and documentation of programmes and policies involving nutrition.
She has a PhD in international nutrition with epidemiology and soil science from Cornell University USA and a particular interest in nutritional quality of foods. She studied and taught permaculture design in the 1990s and applies the principles of permaculture design to her work in international development.
In 2018, Anne-Marie conducted a nutrition-sensitive outcome evaluation of the Himalayan Permaculture Centre in Nepal as a case study. In 2019, Anne-Marie carried out a review of 13 Permaculture projects for nutrition impact along with her colleague Elizabeth Westaway.
She is currently providing training on nutrition and the links to permaculture and evaluation. This brings together her long-standing interests and skills in these areas.
Kate’s professional background is in Operational Research. She has been a consultant for over twenty years, working on projects including systems mapping, data and modelling, and design of measurement systems, training courses and user-friendly data and analysis tools. She is a director and fellow of The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems.
Kate started her journey with permaculture in Wales in 2006. She completed a full Permaculture Design Course in Malawi in 2014, and started her Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design in 2019. She co-founded Malawi Schools Permaculture Clubs (MSPC) in 2015 and is still closely involved today.
Through her work with MSPC, Kate has direct experience of the challenges in assessing the impact of resource-stretched community permaculture projects. She wanted help but could not find it, so she teamed up with Anne-Marie to create Permaculture Impact.
PARTNERS
Permaculture Impact is a project of The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, in partnership with Permaculture Association Britain. Its development has been funded through a grant from an anonymous charitable foundation, and materials are free to use for all.
This website is a product of the first phase of Permaculture Impact. (You may have encountered us under our working title of Permaculture Evaluation Toolkit.) . We have also collaborated with Revaluation to create Revaluation for Community Permaculture Projects.