The intercultural community garden I’ve been working on since March (and documenting right her
The intercultural community garden I’ve been working on since March (and documenting right here in tumblrspace, from inception and intercultural training, to gruntwork and reflection, to my countless harvest pics) is featured on the cover of this week’s Westender, a Vancouver urban weekly:Though not as lush as in the summer months, plots in the intercultural community garden on the roof of St. Paul’s Hospital still bear fruit (and vegetables). On a tour of the joint project between the Robert Lee YMCA, the West End Residents Association, and Gordon Neighbourhood House, gardeners Ningna Lu and Chris Barber marvel at some stunted strawberries that have braved the autumn chill. Lu and Barber were among 50 dedicated West End residents — nearly half of whom are new immigrants — that painstakingly schlepped soil up to the roof of the hospital, one bucket at a time, to build the community project last June. With funding from the federal and provincial governments through Welcome BC, the garden’s demographics reflect the cultural make-up of the West End, with 40 per cent of the plots reserved for new immigrants.“The city has a lot of community gardens, but none of them focused on the intercultural piece,” explains Joao Salm, the project participant coordinator with the YMCA. “So the garden was really an opportunity for us to bring people together and grow organic food.”Though the aim of the project is more about promoting cross-cultural relationships than sustainable living, Salm says the two are really inseparable when it comes to the garden. Lu’s experience certainly reflects that. A Chinese immigrant who came to Canada five years ago, she got involved in the garden to practice her English skills. Though the language barrier makes it difficult for her to answer questions about whether gardening has taught her about sustainability, there’s evidence that it has. Lu’s pride in growing her own food is clear. She enthusiastically pulls out a handful of just-picked green beans, announcing she’s grown more than 200 of them over the summer, as well as about a dozen seeds she’s saved and is planning to plant next year.Helping immigrants understand the language around sustainability is something Murillo and others working with RangiChangi hope the government will get more involved in as the environmental movement becomes more culturally diverse. In addition to holding public forums in Vancouver, the volunteer-run group has been working with cultural organizations to get the message out about sustainability early on in the immigration process. Murillo says the demand is huge for education on things like food security, but also basic recycling, which for a lot of new immigrants is not all that basic. “It’s not in the brochure about how to adapt in Vancouver and in Canada,” she says.As nascent as it is, Murillo is heartened to see a robust environmental movement, that’s culturally diverse but ideologically united, taking shape and building momentum. “The funny thing is that when you do a little bit,” she says, “you start doing more and more and more.” -- source link