Group Interests, Goals and Reason for Choosing Riley Park Community Garden:
As a group, we share a collective interest in being community change makers by applying our knowledge, engaging with community partners and using teamwork. Recalling the wise words of Sirolli, no great business was started by one person (TED, 2012) aligning with this team’s attitude towards this project. We each had our own motivations for choosing the project, but one common reason was being able to foster a community at Riley Park where we seek to include and educate “at risk” populations, food insecure families and vulnerable citizens, while working cohesively as a team.
Our goals of this project comes in the form of milestones markers, with each event we participate in at Riley Park adding up to satisfy our overarching project goals. Throughout this term, we strive to correctly and efficiently bring target populations to Little Mountain Riley Park, which will benefit most from the services and events provided. We also want to improve the food literacy and food systems literacy of these populations by translating our knowledge in a manner that is appropriate to each person, which will hopefully help them better access nutritious foods.
Community Partner:
The community partner for this project is Joanne McKinnon of Little Mountain Riley Park Neighbourhood Food Network (LM-RP NFN). The LM-RP NFN is a member of the Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Network, a group created to help address issues of accessibility to local food across Vancouver. We will be focusing on the Riley Park Community Garden, which has both a fieldhouse and a garden space and currently hosts food-related events to foster a sense of community, especially amongst newcomers, while promoting education in food nutrition and literacy.
The area is home to two low income housing units, and many individuals and families struggle to find adequate nutrition. However, the organization has trouble locating these groups, and therefore it is difficult to inform them of available options and opportunities. In addition, those who come to the Community Garden are often unfamiliar with the types of food being grown there, which impedes their ability to use and prepare that food. The organization hopes to increase people’s access and understanding of food.
Project objectives:
The overall goal of this project is to use available resources to strengthen relationships in Little Mountain Riley Park community and promote awareness of food security issues. We will seek to create material to improve food literacy and develop a strategy that will share this information and promote existing and future services effectively.
The community garden, food literacy box, and fieldhouse can all be utilized in this endeavour. We will make the food literacy box more attractive and use it plus events in the garden to teach food skills and further the conversation around food in the community. Events will also be an opportunity to engage with the community and help strengthen relationships. In addition, we can seek to develop a programme of workshops and events that can be used to teach food skills and literacy throughout the year and compile a list of contacts – people, groups, and organizations – that could contribute to these events in some way.
Another important part of this project is to reach out to vulnerable groups in the community and try to help increase their access to nutritious food. We hope to break the cycle of vulnerable citizens being forgotten and having inadequate resources allocated to them and their families. To do so, we want seek out these individuals and identify the kinds of services that might be helpful to them; if those services already exist, we could direct the individuals to them, and if they do not, we can bring ideas for new services back to the community partner. When appropriate, we can also offer an inclusive environment to present nutritional education and culturally appropriate recipes. Finally, we can conduct general interviews with community members to gain insight into their situations and further important conversations.
First Impressions
An initial first impression we first had was that we, a group of six individuals, were a competent force for change. We were a large enough group, with resources and the initiative. However, after our meeting with Joanne, we realized that our actions would only represent a small part of the change we sought to establish. Sirolli’s TED talk reminded us that it takes a group to successfully see change, not one single person. It didn’t occur to us at the time that our group of six was similarly like a lone individual. There needs to be more people and community connections to help in order for us all be an active member in our own food system and see a significant reform.
This realization does not make us feel hopeless or insignificant as just a group of six. Rather, it was inspiring because reflecting on the change that has already been accomplished especially at Riley Park, that meant people united, fought and were successful in meeting their goals and in creating a sustainable change. However, as a group of six we know by being resourceful and reaching out to our community, (local) change is possible; at the same time we are humbled by knowing the more people on board in a community project such as ours, the better.
In addition, immediately after being assigned into the group for the project, we believed that trying our best to provide external help to the neighbourhood was the most beneficial method for improving the community. However, after watching the TED talk by Ernesto Sirolli, we realized that listening to what the local people want and need is the most appropriate and efficient way to aid the community, rather than imposing our own ideas about what they require. As well, it’s easy to understand the principles behind Asset-Based Community Development, such as the attitude we should hold for community reconstruction, the importance of everyone in the community having a common vision, as well as the application of different roles to create sustainable living. However, we realized that by going out into the community it may potentially help us understand that it isn’t as straightforward as the principles stated. We hope to foresee more opportunities and possibilities of community building after working on this project.
On another note, our first impression of this course is that it is strongly representative of the TED talks we were assigned to watch, which provide us with a different insight of what is the best way to help others and the community to improve the food system. Also, the course initially seems very flexible and “unstructured”, allowing us to learn at our own pace and in our own way.
Just like LaDonna Redmond, we all believe that the main principle of food justice is not only about nutrients and having an equal food accessibility to healthy meals, but what it matters the most is dignity and visibility. Being respected is one of the most important elements in food justice because global issues such as slavery and underpay will continue to be unsolved without appreciating and acknowledging people’s contribution to our food industry. If slavery is still being used for production, importation, as well as exportation in our modern food industry, then equality can never be reached and opportunities are never given out fairly to everyone. As a connection to our project goals, this is what we are trying to address by breaking the cycle of discrimination toward certain populations and consequently their inevitable inaccessibility to food and community services. While the concept of food justice can be put into definite terms, it is not as easy to determine when or if we have truly gained food justice. Thus, we hope to further understand this concept theoretically in lecture and practically through the term project.
References:
TED. (2012, November 26). Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM
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. Retrieved from: https://login.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.tandfonline.com%2fdoi%2fabs%2f10.1080%2f0961452032000125857