Monthly Archives: February 2017

After meeting with our seniors we are stoked to report that we are well on our way with our Asset Map. The seniors were so fantastic and helped identify some fantastic resources to include in our map. Here is our project proposal!

Our meeting with the seniors was informative and engaging. After an initial poll as to where the seniors liked to shop, we set up a tally system where each senior could add a tally next to each store on the list if the senior shopped at this store regularly. The seniors then kindly provided details as to which kinds of food can be found at each of the stores on the list, and identified key culturally-appropriate foods. A surprising takeaway from the meeting was that the seniors said that they had already known of where to shop before they arrived in Canada. According to the seniors, the sponsors who worked with the seniors to ease the seniors’ transition to living in Canada provided information as to the right places to shop up to a year in advance of the seniors’ immigration to Canada. However, the seniors said that having a map of the key stores would still be useful for newcomers. At the end of the meeting we asked the seniors if there was anything they would have liked to know before they had moved to Canada. Their response was that the seniors would have liked to have known where to find affordable housing when they first arrived in Canada. As shown in Miewald and Ostry’s “A Warm Meal and a Bed: Intersections of Housing and Food Security in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside” (2014), there is a connection between community food security and access to suitable housing. In many cases affordable housing is not centrally located and does not allow for easy access to food, which poses a challenge to newcomers on a budget as well as people with physical limitations like some of the seniors. While identifying affordable housing locations is beyond the scope of this project, future projects may benefit from incorporating this research into their food systems analysis.

ISSofBC_Proposal_Final (1)

  • So now that you’ve seen our proposal, here is a little update 🙂
    It has been one month since our last post, and we are really excited about the direction our project is taking. We have met the incredible people from the Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISS BC) and seniors from the Guilford community who have provided us with invaluable information and inspiration to create the best resource possible for both the seniors and for new immigrants. Meeting with the seniors puts into perspective the impact that we can have, and makes the effects of the project more tangible. Assigning faces and creating a personal connection with the people that will benefit from the map drives us to put our best foot forward. We have also completed our Criminal Record checks at the Vancouver Police Department] for vulnerable populations which will allow all of us to cook with the seniors at the end of our project, which is another great opportunity to learn and to assess how effective and useful our map was for the seniors. 

    Weekly Objective and Achievements:

    Week 2 (Jan 9th)

    Objectives
    ● Articulate the principles of Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) and Food Justice
    ● Meet your group and set terms of reference for group work through developing a team charter
    ● Identify and articulate elements of professional conduct to prepare for engaging with community
    ● Set-up your group’s UBC Blog

    Achievement
    ● Our group members met up and got to know each other
    ● Created a group handshake routine
    ● Set up a Facebook group page and our group’s UBC Blog

    Week 3 (Jan 16th)

    Objectives
    ● Reflect on the reasons that well-funded, well-conceived community-based projects may fail
    ● Consider, and possibly refine, how your group has been framing your approach to your community-based project with respect to how you “see” yourself and your community.

    Achievement
    ● Met up with Thea Fiddick from ISS BC.
    ● Filled up the volunteer application form.
    ● Learned the community’s expectation for our asset map and what other group has achieved in the past.

    Week 4 (Jan 23rd)

    Objectives
    ● Articulate the importance of a proposal in the development and implementation of a community food security project
    ● Complete the sections of your project proposal (Introduction, Background & Significance, Methods)
  • Get Criminal Record Checks for vulnerable populations

    Achievement
    ● Discussed and started drafting our group proposal
    ● Found out how to obtain a certified Criminal Record for meeting up the seniors
    ● Obtain proof letters from Thea for completing background check

    Week 5 (Jan 30th)

    Objectives
    ● Finish our proposal
    ● Get the proposal feedback from TA

    Achievement

    ● Completed our proposal report, and submitted it by the weekend
    ● Made progress on obtaining certified Criminal Record
    ● Set up date to meet up seniors with Thea

    Week 6 (Feb 6th)

    Objectives
    ● Consider how behavior, identity and action is shaped by and shapes an individual’s efforts to engage in positive change in the food system.

    Achievements
    ● Finished and submitted our group proposal

    Week 7 (Feb 13)
    Objectives
    ● Meet up with the seniors from community and learn their opinion on the asset map

    Achievements
    ● We learned how to make the map more practical for new immigrants to the Surrey area.
    ● The seniors provided us the list of grocery stores they like to go in the community and pointed out the key ingredients from recipe book.
    ● We also learned the key issues we need to consider when we make the map

    An important moment during our progress
    WHAT:
    Our goal for this project is to create a food asset map for new immigrants who settle down in Surrey area so they can have access to affordable and culturally appropriate foods. To achieve this goal, we are working together with ISS BC.
    Meeting our community contact Thea Fiddick was the milestone moment for our project. Thea has been working closely with new immigrants for ISS BC for over 10 years. She knows new immigrants’ needs, cultural background and the difficulties they face when they come to BC. Most new immigrants have Muslim background and speak Persian, so the recipe book was written in Persian by people from the community and translated into English and all the ingredients must be halal foods. When we read the recipes, some ingredients are not specific and confusing. An other issue is that the food secure issues they are facing are more complicated than we initially considered. Most new immigrants ISS BC are helping are refugees from Afghanistan and Syria, and they live on the benefits provide by Canadian government and it is only about 1000 per month. So public transit for them is not affordable. The definition for community food security is “all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice” (Hamm & Bellows, 2003) In this situation, food security for these new immigrants are being able to access affordable, culturally appropriate and nutritious foods from walking distance.
    Another issue occurred to us in the meeting is that we want to provide as much details as possible on the map, but we need to make it simple for the new immigrants to read.

    SO WHAT:
    Although meeting with Thea raised up all the challenges we will face in this project, Thea also provided a solution—-meeting the seniors. No one knows better the issues and solutions in the community, than the people from the community. Our team has come up a list of questions that we need to ask the seniors:

    ◆ What are the key ingredients that should be featured in the asset map?
    ◆ Which shops are the most culturally appropriate, accessible and affordable for the seniors?
    ◆ What information the seniors want to know from the map?
    Besides, we will ask the seniors to review our map after we finish it.
    In the meeting, the seniors provided a list of key ingredients and a list of grocery stores they like to shop at.
    NOW WHAT?
    Objectives
    ● Finish the asset map
    ● Set up a date to cook with the seniors in UBC
    To finish the asset map, our next step is to check up grocery stores in Guilford town center area and the other grocery stores the seniors provided for us. We need to ask if the grocery stores carry the key ingredients from the recipe book as well as their price. After acquire all the information we need we can work on making the map.
    In order to cook with the seniors, we need to contact the seniors through Thea, confirm a date with the seniors and our professor then we need to book a kitchen in UBC. After the date is confirmed, we will decide what food we want to make and a grocery list, so we can shop for the ingredients one day ahead.
    To sum it up, here is our to-do list:
    Check grocery stores in Guilford town centre area
    Record the groceries the store carries
    Record the price of key ingredients in each store
    Make the asset map draft
    Show our draft to Thea and the seniors
    Decide on the time and date for the cooking session
    Book a kitchen
    Decide on what food we should cook
    Make a grocery list
    Buy the groceries one day ahead

    We are so excited for what’s to come and we are confident that we have the tools we need to get through the next phase of our project. Check in next time for an update on our progress!
    References:
    Hamm, M. W., & Bellows, A. C. (2003). Community food security: Background and future directions. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 35(1), 37–43.

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. doi:10.1080/02673037.2014.920769