Geeli Mitti Brings Back The Aroma Of Home Grown Products #CommunityLiving

All it takes to make the change is to be the change that you want to see. That’s what Shagun did. Despite a very successful corporate career, leading MNCs like Fitness First, Guthy-Renker, DTZ, Clove Dental at a National Level for over a decade, Shagun decided to leave it all behind for doing something about spreading sustainable living. For 4 years while still working, she travelled across the world during her annual vacations learning about Permaculture, Natural Building techniques, Organic farming methodologies, making Natural Products for self and home use, Food Preservation and self-sufficient Community Living. And finally, Geeli Mitti was founded 2 years back.
 

She’s also done her Permaculture Design Certification and trained with the Horticulture Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence, Mushroom Cultivation Research Centre and Bio-Dynamic Farming.
 

Geeli Mitti is a longing for the earth, a calling to go back to our roots, an affirmation towards earth care and repair. It is a developing Permaculture Farm and a learning centre set in a remote village near Nainital. The focus currently is on training the local villages and everyone else on how to build one’s own house or any structure in fact through different tested techniques from around the globe such as Earth Bags, Cob, Earthship, Stone formwork, Rammed earth, Adobe, Wattle and Daub, Logs...Natural Structures that use the sun, wind and rain for creating highly energy efficient, carbon neutral, stunning abodes.
 

In the next few months, there will be workshops, for both urban and rural settings, to grow your own food organically, make compost with kitchen waste, keep chickens as pets and for eggs, making your own breads, jams, jellies, sauces, pickles, pizzas, yoga with farm animals. 

The last workshop in October/November 16 where participants learnt to build an earthquake proof home of Earthbags saw a lot of enthusiasm and fun. And now Geeli Mitti has announced their next workshop, the Cob Cottage, coming up in Feb.'17 which is a unique experiment building with mud and straw with an SUV as entrance and a living roof with live plants. Participants are coming from across the World to learn and experience staying in a beautiful village setting. You can find out more about it here. One of the key concepts Shagun focuses on is to get over the societal myth and fear of doubting yourself and assuming that you need to be a trained architect or engineer to build your own house or that it is impractical and difficult to live sustainably.
 

Attending one workshop and being passionate is all the training you need. I want to educate everyone on the many advantages of natural buildings and how these skills make you a more grounded person and can also be used for building in urban plots or on your terrace. A few advantages:

- Natural buildings typically use locally abundant materials right on the site or nearby so are very economical with no carbon footprint.

- The materials are used according to their thermal mass and insulation properties ie the superior ability to store heat/cold and to prevent leakage of energy. This means comfortable homes with minimal energy cost.

- Passive design ensures that the buildings are planned to optimize the solar energy and direction, wind patterns and plantings so the houses are naturally comfortable year round.

- Hand Built natural house means it is totally custom built for your exact needs, size, specifications and is a image of your personality and tastes. There cannot be another house like yours.

 
- Natural materials allow complete freedom and flexibility to mold as your heart desires. There are no requirements of standard length or straight lines or corners. The only limitation is your own imagination.
 

The solution to a lot of our issues lies in small scale community level living and production to start with. So, in her own small way, Shagun invites everyone to Geeli Mitti, to experience how easy and fruitful it is to slow down, grow your own food, live in natural buildings suited to your environment and live a healthy abundant lifestyle.