How can we bring permaculture into homes and neighborhoods? What are some effective strategies for neighborhood organizing using our permaculture know-how? How can local governmental agencies support permaculture and community resilience?

Learn about the Resilient Hubs Initiative, a collaboration between the NorCal Resilience Network and Daily Acts, is an exciting new model that uses permaculture principles to create create a network of homes, schools and neighborhood centers that are “ready for anything” – better prepared for natural disasters, climate change and other stresses in our community.

The first hour will describe the project and the organizations behind it, supported by a panel of representatives from community farms and homesteads who are part of the pilot project. The second hour will look at specific sites and how this model can be used to transform the site into a model Resilient Hub. The third hour will look at how this project can go viral, from looking at government agencies and other funding sources to getting media attention.

Presented By: Susan Silber

Ellen Bauer is the Public Health Division Director for the Sonoma County Department of Health Services.  Prior to this assignment, she was the founding manager of Health Action, a coalition of diverse community leaders convened by the Health Department to identify priority health issues in Sonoma County and to offer leadership to implement initiatives and policies to create a healthier community.  Before coming to Sonoma County, Dr. Bauer had over 20 years of experience designing and implementing national and community-level health program evaluations.  She has led research and evaluation on a wide range of health issues, including implementation and outcomes (quality, utilization and cost) of managed Medicaid for both acute and long-term care services.  She earned a BA in Economics from Stanford, a Masters of Public Policy, Graduate School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D., Health Services and Policy Analysis, University of California at Berkeley.  She was also awarded several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships from the National Institute on Aging and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

2016 Convergence Panel: Grassroots & Government: Collaborations to Grow the Movement

Sunday, September 18th | 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM | Main Stage

Oscar works for the Sonoma County Department of Human Services. Prior to joining the County, Oscar served as the Executive Director of the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County, one of the largest community benefit organizations in Northern California. Oscar has dedicated himself to establishing strong and positive ties between the county’s low wealth neighborhoods, public entities and the business community in order to raise awareness about the growing education, health and income disparities that exist in our communities. He is equally committed to finding solutions that get at the root cause of poverty.

Friday Oct 6| 7:30pm| Main Stage

Cultivating Unity in a Divided World

Panel of three people: Nils Paulsen, Brenda Quintero and Fairlight Alghren share three perspectives and highlight community service work we are involved in. Highlights will include building collaborative partnerships, working with forestry and CalFire on land mitigation after forest fires, working with funding agencies and community members, and fundraising efforts being made and finding access to hidden resources once the smoke clears. We will also discuss what has been happening within our government, what is working and what is not working, etc, assistance we’ve had from outside agencies and what efforts are being made to promote sustainable and fire resilient technologies in rebuilding our communities.

Presented By: Nils Paulsen, Brenda Quintero and Fairlight Alghren

Saturday, September 17th | 9:30 – 10:30 AM | The Grove