Learning Through Experience - August Newsletter
Kia ora,
After many years as a school principal, Doris Zuur had a clear sense of what many young people were looking for as they stepped into adult life: practical skills, a community to belong to, and space to explore some of life’s bigger questions.
These were not always things the conventional education system was equipped to provide.
The lack of options is what drove Doris to join Gary Williams and Lucy Carver to establish Toru Education Trust in 2016, working across Kāpiti, Wellington, the Hutt Valley and Wairarapa.
Its purpose came in two halves. First, to provide hands-on, experiential learning that nurtures people, planet and spirit. Second, to help people organise this kind of learning for themselves, sharing the roles of teacher, learner and organiser as they go.
The Toru (meaning three in te reo Māori) learning principles combine the three ethics of permaculture; earth care, people care, and fair share, as well as hands, heart and head; another triple-pronged approach adopted from Waldorf education.
Some of the Toru members, including Gary Williams, Hella Coenen, Doris Zuur, and Emma Ellison (from left).
Each of the three Toru founders brought their own experience to the kaupapa. Doris had previously founded a Rudolf Steiner school. Gary, a permaculture teacher and biodynamic farmer, also had a background as a consulting engineer specialising in water and soil - recognised as a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand in 2013 for his work designing flood-management systems that work with, rather than against, the natural environment.
Together with Emily Williams, Gary also helped design a twenty-hectare food forest in the Wairarapa, where 5,000 trees were planted in a single winter.
Creating the container
In its first year, Toru was, in Doris’ words, “a legal container” - a structure through which people could offer and attend practical learning experiences, like permaculture design courses, earth-building workshops, and gardening classes held in Doris’ small Paekākāriki backyard.
Over the following years, the programme grew to include breadmaking, bushcraft, dowsing, food forestry and the full Permaculture Design Certificate. In 2019, Hella Coenen opened a forest school in Wairarapa, giving local children the opportunity to learn beneath the trees.
Then Covid arrived, interrupting the programme - twice.
In October 2023, Toru’s trustees gathered in Paekākāriki to consider what the organisation should become next. Applying the principles of permaculture to Toru itself, they returned to three priorities:
Share the stories of regenerative work already happening across the region.
Host a Toru Trail each month.
Offer the Permaculture Design Certificate again.
The Toru Trail vistis Tinui Food Forest, Wairarapa; a 4-acre multi-layered ecosystem complete with a willow maze, a hope teepee, and a kitchen garden.
Following the trail
The Toru Trails have since become a central part of the Trust’s work. Each trail is a day spent learning on a local person or organisation’s whenua - from visiting a food forest in Tinui, to exploring an off-grid home in Ōtaki.
The trail is an opportunity for participants to hear directly from the people who have done the work - often complemented by practical workshops in seed raising, pruning, composting, foraging and other useful skills.
Toru also uses its website to share partner events in the Greater Wellington region, helping people discover local workshops, permaculture courses and community gatherings aligned with the Toru kaupapa.
“No synthetic fertiliser, only compost” is how Toru describes its own growth, and celebrating ten years this September, the Trust remains small, grounded and patient - creating opportunities for people to learn practical skills, connect with one another and carry that knowledge into their own communities.
Below you will find some highlights from Toru Trust’s journey, along with our latest giftee updates and news from across the community.
Ngā mihi aroha,
Biome Trust
Doris demonstrating the “hands on” education approach.
Doris regularly teaches the art of Sourdough breadmaking.
Natural building workshop in Otaki, March 2017
The Toru Trail visits Crooked Vege market gardens in Otaki.
Giftee Updates
Kelmarna Community Farm is hosting a Seedling Sale & Garden Party on Saturday 10 October, after closing its recent Annual Appeal at $89,079. More
Mangaroa Farms hosted their first Wellington on a Plate event on-site in the Yurt, serving up a locally produced feast over two nights. More
Kōanga Institute is distributing pacific Taro cultivar gifted by Pā McGowan, sending starter tubers to groups re-establishing taro gardens nationwide. More
UNDERGROUND Festival walked its new Te Miro farm site with Waikato flower growers and Soil Sisters, planning demonstration gardens for March 2027. More
Papawhakaritorito Trust co-hosted a Hua Parakore soil health wānanga with Māoriland and Wesley Community Action. More
Organics Aotearoa Organics Aotearoa drew responses from four NZ political parties to its election Organics Manifesto. More
Kaicycle is piloting a food rescue program, pulling still-edible kai out of the local compost circuits. More
Rewiring Aotearoa’s Electrify Expos feature free community-led events across the country, helping locals explore EVs, solar, heat pumps and more.
The Learning Environment is calling for hundreds of plastic pallets to lift native seedlings off the ground in its nursery. More
Tīwaiwaka celebrated the launch of Pā Robert McGowan's revised book Rongoā Māori - fifty years of mātauranga carried and shared. More
Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation spent a morning with Pirinoa School planting 100 trees and grasses in the remnant podocarp forest at Ongaha Farm. More
Garden to Table's Spring Appeal is matched dollar-for-dollar for a limited time, doubling every gift that puts tamariki in school gardens. More
House of Science gathered a full house of staff from across the country for their national conference in Tauranga. More
Rites of Passage Foundation are hosting upcoming programmes and weekend retreats for all ages in Golden Bay. More
4 A Better City won its Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards category for I Have A Dream Upper Hutt, and placed runner-up for Mahinga Kai composting. More
Conservation Volunteers NZ reached 200,000 native plants at its Papakura Stream restoration, five years of volunteers rebuilding a South Auckland catchment. More
Waiheke Marine Project completed its sixth annual Kōura Dive Survey with hundreds of collaborators; findings go public on Waiheke 5 September. More
Go Eco Waikato kept 300+ single-use plates out of landfill at Mānawatia ā Matariki with its new wash trailer, composting 31kg of food scraps. More
Native Forest Restoration Trust watched sixteen Makahu School students plant a forest at Patui they will see grow their whole lives. More
One of 11 Kōkako from the Hūnua ranges preparing for a journey to their new home in the northern Waipoua Forest.
Additional News
Hūnua kōkako recovery came full circle as birds from the now-thriving Auckland population were moved north to help prevent local extinction near Waipoua Forest. More
DOC researchers found Canterbury spotted skinks in an area where the nationally endangered lizard had not been recorded for more than 50 years. More
A Montreal trial of 1,000 primary students is testing whether outdoor science lessons ease stress and eco-anxiety while deepening science learning. More
Our Freshwater 2026 found only a tenth of Aotearoa's historic wetlands remain, and 89% of native freshwater fish species face extinction. More
Greenpeace and Forest & Bird have called a March for Nature in Aotea Square on 19 September, in response to the Conservation Amendment Bill. More
South Auckland marae received over $2.1 million in support, as places of culture, connection and everyday community resilience. More
“The best fertiliser is the farmer’s footsteps.”
