Farewell

A moment of significance

What?

On Wednesday March 8th, Annie attended the focus group that was led by Benedetta and held at Hastings Community Centre. The purpose of this focus group was to ask the focus group questions that we have revised and to collect data from the participants. Benedetta was in charge of asking all the questions and Annie was responsible for taking notes. Five women who lived in the Hastings Sunrise community participated and surprisingly, all of them stated that they were not food insecure. One woman even asked what food insecurity meant and some of them were even donors for the Food Bank. This was a good experience for Annie who has attended because she did not attend the first focus group and had always wondered what a focus group looked like. She was surprised how outspoken and involved the participants were.

On Sunday March 12th, we ventured out East to the PNE so we could set up our own booth at the Vancouver Farmers Market in Hastings Sunrise. We created a poster board for our booth to share information about current and upcoming programs offered at the Hastings Sunrise Community Center. We created a interactive poster to gather ideas about programs the community would like to see as well as information about the on the ongoing focus groups that are occurring in the community. We developed a mailing list sign-up sheet to provide those who are interested with further information about programs and future focus groups, and lastly developed a space for conversation on the issues of food insecurity

.

So what?

Our goal of this focus group has not been fully met because the participants did not relate themselves to the questions, but we did gain some valuable insight based on their answers. Our group as well as Benedetta had hoped to learn more about people who are food insecure in the Hastings Sunrise Community. Nonetheless, this was a learning experience as we learned that people who are not food insecure tend to be more active in the community.

We had hoped to gather more information from the public however due to the weather conditions, it was a slower day for everyone at the market. We only had a few people sign up for more information and only one of them wished to participate in future focus groups. Though the results are small, they are still positive! Alex will take the emails we have provided her from the list and she can provide them with more information about upcoming programs and activities in the community.

Now what?

With our reflections and informations from the focus group and farmer’s market experiences, Annie and Julian met with Alex on March 22nd to discuss the next steps. In the end, we will not be organising the sixth focus group of the first stage of the Community Food Circles Project. The goal now for Alex and the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network is to implement programming by May. Another focus group may be held after a first round of programming to provide feedback that will be instrumental in the future development of this project in its future years.

One of the major challenges of this project was engaging community members that were actually facing issues of food insecurity, learning what programs are useful to them, and how we can strengthen the food security programing in the community. Going to farmers markets, and requesting for people to spend time to discuss their food insecurity issues might not be the most effective tools for community engagement. In one of our course readings, we learned about the linkages between housing and food security in Vancouver (Miewald, Ostry 2014). There are many connections between the infrastructure of the home, and food security. When there are inadequate cooking facilities in low income housing, this increases food insecurity for the tenants of those housing (Miewald, Ostry 2014). Maybe another tool for engagement that the Hastings Sunrise Community Food Network could utilize would be collaborating with the affordable housing initiatives in the community.

What we will be working on as a group is our implementable project using the insights we now have from our involvement with this project. What we know is that education of general skills in food literacy and preparation is the primary gap identified by the focus groups, and that programming will be focused on addressing this. Alex has suggested that we develop a plan for a program within the five main categories identified by the Community Food Circles Project (Budget friendly & sustainable cooking & food, Cooking & Nutrition for the Family, Cooking & Nutrition for Kids and Youth, Cooking & Nutrition for Seniors, Preserving & Canning). We hope that this program, and all others informed by the insights of the Community Food Circles, will empower the community and its people to apply new skills on a day-to-day basis, ensuring community food security in the home.

References:
Miewald, C., & Ostry, A. (2014). A Warm Meal and a Bed: Intersections of Housing and Food Security in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Housing Studies, 29(6), 709–729.

 Blog Post 3 – Group 22

This is our update for a very preparation-orientated couple of weeks. Since one of the community focus groups had to be cancelled due to low registration, our current discussion has been revolving around how we can most effectively get people interested in this project. We will hopefully achieve this by creating an informative and thought-provoking poster and engaging the community in discussion during the upcoming Vancouver Farmers Market in Hastings Sunrise. We are excited to attend the Farmer’s Market and take some of the knowledge we have gained from the focus groups, and from lecture, and use it to try to get more people involved! Although this project is very needs-based, we are excited to direct the project towards a more asset-based form of community development by introducing ideas of community information sharing (ie. cooking knowledge and recipes).

Ongoing Objectives

• Continuing to prepare for the Vancouver Farmers Market in Hastings Sunrise on March 12th by creating an information board, an interactive activity and a mailing list sign-up sheet to provide to the market crowd.

Achievements

• Attended a Focus Group on March 8th, gaining insight into the needs of the community.
• Focus Group questions were reformulated to remove redundancy.
• We had a meeting with Alex to go over what would be the best way to present to the community at the Farmers Market

Reflection on Group Moments of Significance:

The past week we reflected on our group’s moments of significance throughout our experience working on our community project. It was interesting to see how each of our group members felt during different moments of significance. We found that we all had a common idea of what was significant, but experienced those moments differently as either positive or negative (figure 2). This shows that we all have unique experiences of the same events and thus we should communicate about how we interpreted each moment to offer a diverse range of perspective. For example, meeting Joanne was an early moment of significance that we all had different reactions to. Some people felt that the meeting clarified how to go about our project, others felt more confusion in what was expected of our group. This was important as moving forward we now know how important it is to frequently check-in with each other because what may seem like an obvious thought or reaction to one of us, may be experienced in a completely opposite way by someone else. Fortunately, when we graphed our skill/knowledge levels vs. the moments of significance, we found that all of us have increased our knowledge and skills by working on this project (figure 1). The CFC reporting back meeting at the end of January for all of us, as our first experience in the field of this project, positively boosted our sense of awareness of what this project was about and our attitude towards it.

Figure 1: Knowledge/skills vs Time.

Figure 2: Emotions vs. Time

Graceful Dismount

Our strategy hinges on holding to our objectives which are: to hear from community members by creating opportunities to interact with them during the Farmers Market and in focus groups, and to suggest implementable projects. We hope that our market stand activity this Sunday will further direct us in achieving our final objectives. Our goals on Sunday will be to learn from the community in making contact with them, to recruit the final focus group members, and to hear their ideas of what a new implementable project might look like. While we will definitely be brainstorming future implementable projects based on the data from the focus groups, we know our interactive activity will bring out ideas that are locally appropriate that we will not have thought of. Who better to suggest new food programming for the community centre than the community itself? Reaching out to people to join our focus groups as well as seeking their advice for what is possible in the neighbourhood at the market stand will be an excellent opportunity to apply the principles of asset-based community development in the field (Mathie and Cunningham 2003).

For our next and final blog, we will discuss how the market stand went, how we planned for the focus group that was missed, and how we were able to use what we learned in the community and the focus groups to think about what next steps are needed to further understand and address food security in Hastings-Sunrise.

Resources

Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based community development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474-486. doi:10.1080/0961452032000125857

Blog Post 2 – Group 22

Ongoing Objectives

–      Prepare for focus group attendance: develop a sense of what to expect and what to look for at the two upcoming focus groups based on the past Community Food Circles in the Hastings Sunrise Community Food Network

–      Prepare materials for a Market Stand at the Vancouver Farmers Market in Hastings Sunrise on March 12 or 26 to hear from the community what kind of food programs they would be interested in.

Achievements

–     Attended feedback session on January 26 to formulate our questions around the Community Food Circles Project and write the proposal.

A Moment of Significance

What?

To date, the feedback session for the first stages of the Community Food Circles Project is still the most formative event of this project. On January 26th 2017, a feedback session held at the Hastings-Sunrise Community Centre was facilitated by Joanne, Benedetta, and Alex. The goal of this was for the service providers of the Community Food Network and those involved in the Community Food Circles project – facilitators and focus groups attendees – to provide their input in the development of recommendations for moving forward following the first six of eight focus groups. An interesting thing that took place was that with the attendants of the feedback session, including most of the facilitators and about 15 of the 44 focus group attendants, we began brainstorming solutions to address the many barriers to food that they expressed in the focus groups. One genre of solutions that resonated especially with the attendants were programs to facilitate access to discounted food, like collectively identifying coupons and flyer promotions, bulk buying, and recipe programming out of what is seasonally inexpensive.

So What?

The feedback session was a formative and important experience for our group because it allowed us to more deeply understand the structures of organization and decision making within the Food Circles Project. The feedback given at the meeting was a good baseline to discover the specific issues and what they are currently struggling with. That being said, the session mainly revolved around the “needs” of the community rather than focusing on community assets. We found that practicing asset-based community development is challenging when so much of the planning framework and language revolves around “barriers”, “issues”, and “needs” (Cunningham, 2003). There should be a balance between being aware of the issues within the community while also focusing energy towards strengthening community assets. For example, during the meeting we discussed ideas of recipe sharing and cooking lessons taught by folks in the community. This would allow community members to be empowered to share, create a more supportive community, while also addressing issues of food insecurity. Through the session, we were able to collect great suggestions for an implementable project in the future. The experience we had was crucial because it allowed us to get involved with the community directly and think critically about the way we are engaging in community development whether is be need-based or asset-based. After this experience, we have a more clear vision of our role in working with the Hasting-Sunrise Community Food Circles Project.

Now What?

Testing resonance for program strategies with the community members themselves was very effective. Using the information provided, working alongside Alex and Joanne we will now be able to implement a project as well as be involved in receiving more feedback from the community. This is what we will continue to do to produce meaningful strategies for the rest of the project.

Upcoming Objectives and Strategies

1)     Analyse the gaps and opportunities identified in the focus group sessions.

Strategy: To achieve this, we must build a narrative out of what emerges from this focus group session. In identifying what challenges and gaps are raised in this focus group that are shared in common with the other focus groups, we will be able to paint a more holistic image of what must be addressed.

2)     Identify one implementable project

Strategy: The previous step, in which we identify the needs of the community, will not be sufficient to determining what strategies are needed to address these. We will brainstorm some of these solutions to bring to our market stand in March and see if community members agree that these would be appropriate solutions. We must also do research to determine the feasibility of our implementable project proposal, whether this is a community garden, a seasonal recipe program based on bulk-purchased or discounted foods, or something else. Another opportunity to learn about the resources and opportunities in the community to support our proposed solutions is in the community engagement component of our project with the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network. In getting to know people and the assets in the community, perhaps we can also creatively develop ways to address the gaps and needs identified in the focus group sessions.

Resources:
Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based Community Development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474–486.

Julian Villafuerte Diaz is a fourth year undergraduate in the Global Resource Systems program, specialising in regional land use and urban issues, aspiring to be an environmental/regional/urban planner. He is especially interested in how the solutions to creating a sustainable city and food security in the neoliberal city are negotiated and how they can perhaps create spaces of inclusion as opposed to only perpetuating privilege and exclusion. An integral part of doing this is fieldwork into the social worlds of people in need of these solutions, and for this reason, Julian is especially excited about the Community Food Circles project, which is one such urban space where grassroots solutions to create a more just and stable Earth and Society can manifest themselves.

Cory Mejia is a fourth year undergraduate student studying Food and Nutritional Health. He is interested in the concepts of how nutrients play a major role in our day to day lives. Incorporating the basic ideas of nutrition within a community setting can help with possible solutions to issues such as having the adequate proportions of macro and micronutrients within a population, and therefore aiding with the difficulties of food insecurity.

Ilana Marder-Eppstein is a third year undergraduate in the Global Resource Systems program, specializing in food system sustainability and sovereignty. Her interests surround food justice and the effects of race, gender, and class on community food security and sustainability. Ilana is excited to work on this project to further understand how to contribute towards, and enhance the skills of a local community to achieve greater food security. She hopes to learn more about grassroots organizing and how these processes can inform policy.

Whitney Everett is a third year undergraduate student in the Food Nutrition and Health program, specializing in Food Market Analysis. Her interests are focused in the economics of food, with a special interest in food consumption. People are fascinating when looked at through the scope of Economics. It is usually assumed that people are rational in economic models, which isn’t always accurate, it is exciting to explore that deeper and get into behavioral economics and understanding the way people think about their food choices and the food market. Looking at the  economics of food security will lead to policy change and building a stronger community.  

Brandon Ray is a third year undergraduate student in the Food, Nutrition and Health program, focusing on Nutritional Sciences. Most of his studies focus on the science end of the Land and Food Systems scale, therefore, he is very excited to be doing a project on a human level instead of through textbooks and microscopes. Although he is very interested in Nutritional Sciences, the reason that he initially applied to the Food, Nutrition and Health program was to help people lead a healthier and happier life, which is nearly impossible to accomplish just by providing nutritional knowledge. This project is about helping people in a way that targets their actual and realistic needs, instead of just telling people how to eat and expecting them to be able to follow that diet, so he is eager to contribute to it.

Annie Shum is a third year undergraduate student who is in the Food, Nutrition and Health and Education Dual Degree program. She is aspiring to be a Home Economics teacher and is especially interested in teaching others how to make healthy and sustainable food choices. She chose this project because it focuses on increasing access to healthy foods in the Hastings Sunrise community, where she grew up. She hopes this project will enhance her understanding of food security and also learn how to strengthen and contribute to this community.

What we all hope to achieve in choosing this project is the experience of solution-building at the grassroots level; directly with the people for whom these solutions are intended. While our ideas on what a possible project or program to implement in the Hastings-Sunrise area may differ for now, we hope to unify and work together on a singular project and thereby not only learn from each other, but from the community stakeholders who hold the local knowledge that will be key to our success.

Project Objectives and Community Organisation Introduction

The Community Food Circles Project is operated out of the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network (HSCFN), which is one of 14 agencies that comprise the Vancouver Community Food Network and are supported by grants commissioned by the Vancouver Food Strategy, which is a part of the City of Vancouver’s 2020 Greenest City Action Plan which addresses food insecurity. Our project, as the second round of LFS 350 students helping Joanne MacKinnon in operating the Community Food Circles Project, has three objectives:

1. To conduct two focus groups at the Hastings-Sunrise Community Centre after having refined the questions used for the previous six.
2. To identify one implementable project that addresses the recommendations from the focus groups through one of the service providers in the HSCFN
3. To engage in the HSCFN through community events hosted by service providers, and thereby experience grassroots community development.

Impressions

So far, we have met our main point of contact in the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network, Joanne MacKinnon, twice already. The first time was on Monday the 23rd of January, when we touched based and discussed the nature of the project. The second time was on Thursday the 26th of January, when we met with Joanne and many of the agency service providers, stakeholders, and focus group participants to discuss the results of the community food circle project.

The Community Food Circles (CFC) Project is in its nascent stages. In 2016, the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network, completed a three-year strategic plan to improve the function of their network in providing food security to members in their community. Now, their mission is to address issues of food insecurity in the next three years through the CFC project.

This first year of the project, involves the formation of focus groups which will inform the development of programming to strengthen the community’s food security.  Our LFS 350 fall precedents worked with Joanne when the HSCFN was in the process of training facilitators for the focus groups. These focus groups were hosted by a number of service providers including: Kiwassa Neighborhood house, City Reach, Thunderbird Community Center, Frog Hollow Neighborhood House, and the Hastings Community Association. The food circles discussed five main questions that revolved around how each participant experienced or viewed food security. The facilitators played a key role in guiding these circles. Seven of the eight facilitators has experienced  food insecurity at some point in their lives, which is important to note when considering the focus group dynamics.

Two focus groups were carried out during the time that our precedent group was working with Joanne, and four more were conducted in December. While we are working with Joanne, we will be attending two focus groups at the Hastings-Sunrise Community Centre. The findings on the six focus groups were presented to us in the second meeting this Thursday. From here we have already started thinking about the next objective of our project: to identify one project based on the recommendations of the focus groups.

Some of the major barriers restricting food security discussed in Thursday’s briefing included: food price, mobility issues (transportation was a large barrier, especially in poor weather conditions), time, and child minding. The group brainstormed different programs to address these challenges. Some examples of programs suggested were, workshops on seasonal meal planning on a budget and an online platforms to share information on where to find cheap food on a daily or weekly basis.

Already, we have begun to encounter and think about grassroots solutions or projects that could address the caveats of food insecurity in this area. On Monday, we heard from Joanne that there is a space which used to be a permaculture garden in the neighborhood, but has functioned with little support. With planning and resources, could this become a food asset that addresses the widespread desire to garden and overcome the barriers of community garden wait lists and lack of access to gardening space that were identified in focus groups. Could this realize the potential for food security and food sovereignty for at least a handful of community members?

In Ernesto Sirolli’s TED talk presentation, he states that if individuals want to help solve a problem within a community we should “shut up and listen!” Furthermore he describes a concept called enterprise facilitation that portrays that if individuals/groups want to help a community, they first become servants of the local passion, and servants of the local people that want to do better. With these ideas in mind, we took a more observatory and supportive role in this week’s debriefing event at Hastings Sunrise Community Centre. The people we have met have great suggestions/ideas on resolving food insecurity within their community and lastly are very welcoming and full of energy. It has already been so much to process, but already we are beginning to paint a clearer picture of the next couple months with this project and of what we can expect in the end.