BLOG POST 2

Proposal

Proposal Report

 

Weekly Objectives:

  1. Check in with our community partner to discuss our project plan and progress
  2. Begin to go out in the DTES to survey the 25 organizations we are set out to meet with
  3. Complete said surveys within the next 2 weeks so that we can start final report

Achievements:

  • We have completed our project proposal and now have began to revise it
  • We have started surveying and meeting with some of the 25 organizations
  • We are learning to adapt to the survey questions as we have found that each individual organization is different and offer different assets to the community

Introduction:

Over the last few weeks we have learned how to appropriately conduct surveys in a sensitive and positive manner, to ensure we do not offend the person we are surveying and to get the most honest results, that accurately reflect each facility’s food program. Some of the questions in our survey have the potential to offend the surveyee as they may highlight the deficits instead of the assets of their food programs. If the surveyee answers ‘no’ to multiple questions, they may feel defeated and could feel ashamed or embarrassed that their program is not able to incorporate certain food items that we asked about. We discussed strategies about how to celebrate the assets of each food program that we surveyed while also getting the information that we needed.

What?

Upon submitting our proposal and receiving feedback, we have learned about the importance of conducting thorough preliminary research on the community we will be surveying. Obtaining background history and knowledge about the Downtown Eastside (DTES) community is integral to the success of our project as we must have sufficient knowledge about the community in order to best connect with the staff we are hoping to survey as well as to better communicate this in our final report.

When speaking with the staff of the various programmes we must make an intentional effort to use a tone of voice that does not sound judgmental or critical. Each program varies in days/times of the week foods are served, what foods they offer, and the number of people each organization serves on a daily basis. We now know how important each and every food program is at ensuring food security to many of the individuals in this community. Each location provides individuals from this neighbourhood with a warm place to eat and facilitates friendship and community building amongst individuals. It is for this reason that we must be careful and sensitive to the feelings of the staff at these programmes to ensure we are celebrating their accomplishments rather than pointing out their downfalls. It is evident that not all of these 25 organizations meet the needs of all dietary restrictions however, they do try to accommodate all of their community members’ needs with their limited resources.

While all of the aforementioned strategies are important in theory, we noticed that when actually sitting down face-to-face with a staff member from one of the organizations, they did not react as positively as we had anticipated. Our first respondent was very hesitant to answer many of our questions, especially when their answer to the question was ‘no’ and often tried to find a way to divert by talking about their donations or limited funds. We discussed how we could improve the experience for the responder and get the most accurate information about the organization’s food program. Going forward, at the onset of each interview, we will assure the person we are surveying that there is no wrong answer, and that we are merely trying to gather information to create a document highlighting where individuals can access food that will meet their dietary needs.

So What?

The questions that our survey asks could potentially offend some of the staff we survey, as it may highlight/bring to light food options that their program does not serve. For example, it is a lot easier for programs serving smaller numbers of people to be able to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into their menus compared to programs serving hundreds of people a day. On the contrary, programs that can serve hundreds of people are essential when comparing to programs that are not able to offer multiple meals a day or week.  In order to make sure that we do not offend anyone or cause individuals to feel that the DTES Neighbourhood House is superior, we will begin and end our survey with a question that celebrates their programs’ strengths.

Upcoming

Now that our proposal has been approved we are working on completing the 25 surveys at the different food programs on the Downtown Eastside, which we intend to complete in the next two weeks. This will give us ample time to compile our results and complete our final report and information sheet before the end of term. We will be splitting up into two groups, ensuring no one is ever alone, and we will not be doing any of our surveying at night, as instructed by our community partner Joanne. We met with Joanne to discuss our future contact with the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House, Carol, and from now on we will be contacting her due to the position change at the organization. Joanne also confirmed the desired outcomes of our project and how to move forward with this work in the coming weeks.

Once all the surveys are completed, we can move forward with our qualitative data to create a information sheet that highlights the locations of the programs that offer options for those with dietary restrictions. The information sheet will be a great information source and tool for DTES residents to use to locate food programs that offer foods that comply with their dietary restrictions and needs. Our final report and information sheet will be sent to the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House, which they can then share with the various food programs we surveyed.

Linkages:

Our project in the DTES focuses predominantly on the access of foods for low-income and/or vulnerable individuals with dietary restrictions. This is related to what we have discussed in class about how our food system is linked to issues related to class. Particularly, how for low-income and vulnerable individuals in the DTES, everyday is a struggle when it comes to finding ways to access low cost, nutritional foods. One paper states that there is no government entitlement program specifically for food in Canada, leaving charitable food programs in places such as the DTES with limited options because they are reliant on donations coming from private companies disposing of expiring and unsellable foods (Mendes, 2008). Low-income individuals don’t have much of a choice when it comes to what and where they are able to get their food, limiting options for those with dietary restrictions and often leaving them with the decision to give up a meal altogether or eat it anyway causing serious health implications. The issue of class within our food system often leaves many without the choice of where they can access healthy foods or food varieties, further enhancing problems for individuals with medical conditions that limit the foods they are able to consume.

A linkage we found while surveying around the DTES was the connection between gender and food. As we talked in the class, women and children are most vulnerable to malnutrition (Sachs & Patel-Campillo, 2014). One of the organizations we had surveyed is women-only. In order to meet the daily nutrients of pregnant women, this community provide them milk and eggs everyday. The staff told us that sometimes a woman with a man together, and the woman asked food to them, when she got the food she gave the food the man. When in this situation, the staff usually give them more food to make sure this woman having chance to eat.  They need the additional care especially in the DTES.

Conclusion

Throughout this project we have worked to better understand food security in the Downtown Eastside. From recent contact with our community partner we have decided that qualitative data analysis is far more suiting to our data than statistical analysis, which we originally planned to perform. Once all surveys are completed, we will compile our results along with our qualitative data onto an information sheet. We have came to the conclusion that statistical analysis of this small sample size may not be accurate or beneficial to the residents of this area and a visual aid such as an information sheet that outlines the dietary restrictive foods of each program will be more useful.

References:

Mendes, W. (2008). Implementing social and environmental policies in cities: The case of food

policy in vancouver, canada. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(4), 942-967. 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2008.00814.x

Sachs, C., & Patel-Campillo, A. (2014). Feminist food justice: Crafting a new vision.Feminist

Studies,  40(2), 396-410,489-490. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1555373075?accountid=14656

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Spam prevention powered by Akismet