Our team consists of six undergraduate students in the UBC Faculty of Land and Food System with different disciplines (see below). We all are interested in creative group work which made us excited to pick a project that is relatively less constrained than other groups in this Land & Food Systems course. We are interested in bridging the communication gap between the Richmond Food Bank Society & its clientele by conducting interviews with the clients. By interviewing the clients of the Richmond Food Bank we will be giving the community a voice & opportunity for citizen led development. This will be enabled by bridging the communication gap between the Food Bank Society & its clients. By cultivating togetherness between the Richmond Food Bank Society & it’s clients the assets that are offered can be altered for more congruence with the needs & utilization of the community. This would fulfill out goal of addressing the Vancouver Food Strategy because it would improve access to affordable foods. We all hope to get community based experiential learning as to better understand this community food system, assets, & the self reliance of this powerful community.
TEAM MEMBERS
Kala Cristin Draney
My name is Kala & I am a 3rd year Food Nutrition Health student. I really enjoy skiing, rock climbing, yoga, & cooking. This project was not my first choice but I am excited that we have more opportunity for input & construction. I’ve never been more excited for a group project because it gives us an opportunity to get involved with our community in a meanigful way. I hope to gain real life experience in the local food system & gain a better perspective food insecurity in our area. Cheers!
Jenna Faris
I’m a 2nd-year FNH student, hoping to pursue a career in Dietetics. I love skiing, animals, and long walks by the ocean.
I didn’t actually choose this project, but I am very pleased that my group settled on an idea that relates back to food and nutrition, my major. I hope that LFS 350 will help me get used to doing things outside of my comfort zone. I am excited to engage more with the community and branch out from solely in the classroom learning. Through this project, I hope to gain a greater understanding of food insecurity in the Richmond Food Bank area. I am also super excited to see if there is anything my group members and I can do to make a difference, surpassing the confinements of simply completing a school project.
Luyu Nan
My name is Ava and I am a third year student in Land & Food Systems, majoring in the Global Resources program. My specialization is Urban Planning. I can’t wait to start our project because it will help me know more things about the food bank and give me opportunity to work with my group members. I chose this project because I have little knowledge about the food bank, though I know food bank is a great food strategy to address food security problems. By learning more about the food bank it will help be learn more about Vancouver Food Strategy. After this semester, I hope to have a better understanding of the food bank, and gain a unique experience with my group members.
Caroline Kaufman
Hi, I’m Caroline. I am originally from Inuvik, Northwest Territories and I just transferred to UBC last year to join the FNH program. I have been volunteering with the Richmond Food Bank this year and I am excited to get involved in another big project with this great organization. I chose this project because I wanted to be able to participate a project that I was really passionate about. Though many of the available projects seemed great, none of them really stood out in my mind, so I thought being able to come up with our own project as a group would be a great opportunity. From this class I am excited to gain experience interacting with the community through an academic scope as I haven’t done this before. I have been volunteering with this population for a few months, but I think conducting a more long term project with specific goals will allow me to view this type of food security work through a different lens, and critically analyze our contributions. It will also be nice to be able to complete this project with the support and guidance of my group members, the TA and proff. Since we all have different experiences, I think it will make for a great learning environment. Through this project I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the food bank program from the client’s perspective. I also hope to be a bit surprised by the data we collect so that we can make a positive change in an area that may have been hidden in the past. I can’t wait to work with all of you and see what will come out of this semester!
Adriana Laurent Seibt
My name is Adriana Laurent and I’m a GRS (Global Resource Systems) student. I’m an international student from Honduras, and my first language is Spanish. I like cooking (but also eating), reading and hanging out with my friends. I’m really excited about this project because I’ve always been interested in social justice within the food system. Our project is pretty open, but this allows for us to get even more out of it! I chose this project because I wanted to have the opportunity to have a positive effect on a community without having strict academic guidelines to follow. I really liked the idea of ‘creating’ your own project with other students along with our community partners while having support from LFS 350. I hope to gain more knowledge about food security in the community and how food justice plays a role. In the past, many courses have focused on the economic or environmental aspect of food security, but there has been a gap in terms of food justice. I’m really looking forward to working with my teammates and learning more about the Richmond Food Bank.
Imaan Maftah
Hi I am Imaan Himid, a third year student in the Global Resource Systems program. I hail from the sunny shores of Zanzibar, Tanzania and I’ve lived in Kenya and South Africa respectively. My academic specialization focuses on eco justice and I hope to eventually go into environmental law or public policy. I enjoy having flexibility and autonomy in whatever I do, in fact this is the reason why I chose the GRS program, the curriculum provided me with the freedom to guide my own learning . This is exactly why I chose this specific project ‘non-project,’ I wanted to have more of say in who we worked with, the type of work we were going to do and what sort of impact we wanted to have through this project. In particular, I’ve noticed that a lot of my classes often lacks a social justice angle in studying and solving environmental/food justice issues. I hope that through this project we can root our research and study in an intersectional social justice framework, that centers the experiences of groups of people who are often erased from the discourse.
