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Happy Holidays Refarmily! Our latest newsletter Happy Holidays Refarmily! Our latest newsletter just went out. You can view this season’s updates at this link https://mailchi.mp/f233c3886eef/happy-solstice-holidays-new-year or you can click the website link in our bio and go to “News” in the menu bar. It's been 3 months since Refarmer Patrick Paul Kidega and Roland Van Reenen from @abundant.earth.foundation hosted the first free Syntropic Agro-Forestry Course in Kitgum, Uganda. The fruits and vegetables are growing incredibly well! Corn, watermelon, all kinds of greens, peppers, cucumbers and so much more are already being harvested by the children at the school where the demonstration food forest is located and also by community members. We also wanted to highlight Refarmer Patrick's own demonstration food forest at his home. He invites neighbours to come harvest bananas, papayayas, greens, ground nuts and so much more from their garden. Community members are encouraged to learn from the demonstration kitchen garden to emulate in their own gardens. Enhancing soil health using compost and manure, planting a diversity of crops, harvesting water and many more skills are shared from Patrick's home garden and are making an impact in his community. Real change happens at the community level and is driven by community members themsleves. Patrick's efforts are a true testament to what can be done when communities come together to be the drivers of their own change on their own terms without resources, financial or otherwise, coming from outside of their own community. Thank you for all your love and support in 2021 friends! See you in the New Year!
The inaugural Hastings-Surnise Neighbourhood Food The inaugural Hastings-Surnise Neighbourhood Food Week is behind us but the memories are as fresh as fall rain. It’s been a little over a month since Neighbourhood Food Week and we are still reeling from all the community spirit we felt during this incredible series of events which took place in local parks, community gardens, plazas and centres right here in our Vancouver, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) community. The event was facilitated by our collective project @vancouverurbanfoodforest which is made up of many local organizations including Refarmers. In this post, we share memories from the first day which included the opening ceremony by Elder @bobkat_norris , a west coast medicinal Devil’s Club plant workshop with Gitxsan cultural facilitator Leona Brown, a bee and pollinator workshop with Jim McLeod from Hives For Humanity. On the Monday evening we learned to traditionally prepare tortillas using the nixtamalization process with @luisalmazan from @xinachtli.cs On Tuesday morning, we had an inspiring Indigenous and Wild Plant Walk with Lori Snyder @earthandcompany and a Canning Workshop in the evening. Wednesday was the Neighbourhood Food Week Market & Festival and the Changemaker Mixer hosted by @kiwassa. We played a hilarious icebreaker game where we had to guess which food or kitchen tool we had plastered on our back by asking questions to our new friends. Thursday, we got to explore Indigenous and Medicinal Plants with Leona Brown in Clinton Park. We had the Migrant Workers Chat & Salsa/Fuerza Migrante! on the Friday night, Pandora Park Community Garden Tour on the sunny Saturday morning, the Documentary Movie Night on Saturday night and Here Comes The Sunflower Workshop on Sunday morning. Neighbourhood Food Week ignited a newfound inspiration for what it means to live in community. New friends were made, new neighbour connections sparked, new skills learned in the kitchen….these types of events, workshops and skills sharing will be a regular occurrence in our future intergenerational, cross-cultural, knowledge-sharing community space at the @vancouverurbanfoodforest
The first Syntropic Agro-Forestry Course took plac The first Syntropic Agro-Forestry Course took place in Kitgum, Uganda from September 13th - 19th with our team on the ground participating and Refarmers Project Manager Patrick Paul Kidega facilitating this inaugural free course for the community. Roland van Reenen came from Kenya to teach the course with help from Patrick and two other teachers from Kenya. Over 36 students attended, 11 of them were women! These students are school teachers and community organizers who will take these skills back and enhance the agricultural practices where they live and work. 15 of those students will be sponsored to train as teachers in a more advanced course coming up in October. Infinite thanks to our partner @abundant.earth.foundation for sponsoring this life-changing course and the upcoming teacher training. The area they developed for the hands-on training was one of the largest syntropic food forests that Roland has ever established measuring 20m x 60m. The students planted 220 trees including orange, mango, guava and neem as well as all sorts of vegetables like kale, eggplants, green peppers and local varieties like otigo diii, obuga, akeyo, malakwang and otigo lwaka. In the last photos you can see that within a week, the seeds have already sprouted and starting growing strong! Many of the students hope to start small businesses, become educators or continue their careers as teachers with a deeper knowledge of the importance of environmental protection and treating the soil with care so that it may produce an abundance of food for many generations to come.
Join us for Neighburhood Food Week! We've been bu Join us for Neighburhood Food Week! We've been busy planning this incredible event with our collective project @vancouverurbanfoodforest happening from September 20th to the 26th in Hastings-Sunrise, Vancouver Sḵwxw̱ ú7mesh (Squamish), xwməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam) and səli̓lwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory. All the events are free and take place in local parks, community gardens, plazas and centres. The first incredible day is loaded with awesome sessions! Starting at 10am we have the Opening Ceremony with Elder Kat Norris and right after that a workshop on traditional and medicinal uses and preparation of Devil's Club with Gitxsan cultural facilitator Leona Brown. Then we have a workshop with Jim McLeod from @hives4humanity called To Bee(keep) or Not to Bee(keep). These three events are all happening in what is commonly referred to as Oxford Park at 2050 Wall St. Find out more by scrolling through the photos and register at vufff.org/foodweek or use the link in the @vancouverurbanfoodforest bio! Some of the events will be live-streamed on Facebook so be sure to check that out if you can’t attend in person! The @vancouverurbanfoodforest Facebook page has all the info in the events section. See you soon neighbours!
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We operate on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

REFARMERS is a Canadian Registered Non-Profit Incorporation Number S0072619