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We paused our Grandmothers Kitchen Garden Project We paused our Grandmothers Kitchen Garden Project back in October to take a breath and assess all the amazing things we accomplished over the 7 months we ran the project. We established 117 gardens and positively impacted the lives of over 1500 women and children by raising $16,000 in a "just in time model" usually right here on Facebook thanks to all of you! We saw that the Grandmothers and women were starting small businesses and that the money they were making from their little kitchen gardens wasn’t really enough to have a real impact on their futures. 
We consulted the women about this and they asked if we could partner with them to start VSLA Groups (Village Savings & Loans Association). This is what they wanted. When our project manager Patrick Paul consulted the women we had created gardens for, his neighbours and community, they spoke loud and clear and wanted to start savings groups so that they could re-invest their hard earned money into the futures of their children and families. Thanks to our generous donors, yesterday we were able to open one more VSLA group of 25 women. We want to include all the women from our Grandmothers Kitchen Garden Project in the new initiative so we still have to raise $1000 more for one more VSLA group of 25 women. In early February, we started 2 VSLA groups and now we have 3 in total. $40 provides a micro-loan for one woman and helps us get to our goal of starting one more VSLA group! Please visit refarmers.org/donate or the link in our bio to contribute right away! Everybody is really excited for this new adventure! The women will be able to expand their gardens, sell more vegetables, start small food related business which will all help pay the children’s school fees and ensure their families are cared for! A little money goes a long way and we have proven that with our careful planning and patience. One of the permaculture principles is to “use small and slow solutions” to ensure long-term success and this is exactly what we are doing with this new social permaculture VSLA Initiative! You can visit this www.vsla.net if you would like to find out more about VSLAs.
Our monthly email newsletter just came out! Find o Our monthly email newsletter just came out! Find out about our new collective project called Vancouver Urban Food Forest Foundation (VUFFF) which was recently featured in @thevancouversun and @theprovince You can also find out more at Facebook.com/VancouverUrbanFoodForestFoundation. A new website is on the way! Stay in the loop about all things Refarmers in Uganda, online and upcoming events! You can view the newsletter by going to the news section on our website (link in bio) or at Refarmers.org/news/ and sign up on the website’s footer or at https://bit.ly/3fILawa Hope to hear from you soon! . . . . . . . #urbanfoodforest #eastvan #foodforest #newfoodforest #foodjustice #localfoodmovement #eastvancouver #monthlynewsletter #marchnews #goodgrowing #gardenstories #vancouver #coastsalishterritory #urbanagriculture #growfoodeverywhere #vancouversun
Refarmers’ East Africa Project Manager Patrick P Refarmers’ East Africa Project Manager Patrick Paul Kidega met up with our friends at Kakamega School For The Deaf this week for a reunion and site visit. Patrick has been in Kenya teaching a permaculture design course and took this time to also visit our project site from 2019 to see how everything is going despite the pandemic. In 2019, we set out on our first two projects in Kenya and Uganda. We headed to Kakameda County to install a food forest for a food program at Kakamega School for the Deaf. We established a 2 acre food forest developed using human power. At times, we had up to 60 volunteers to help build this food producing, water harvesting system! There is so much rainfall and then long periods of drought so the idea is to create amazing soil health by planting trees, creating biodiversity and cover cropping among other things so that the soil can absorb enough water within the system to sustain itself during periods of up to a month of drought without large scale irrigation. People can hand water but the need for transporting water from far away distances is eliminated. Access to water is often scarce and this is why permaculture works so well in equatorial regions where lack of water and lack of soil health are the main barriers to getting the most out of a piece of land. These were already scaled down versions of large international projects but what we realized later on is that to make these projects successful in the long run the community capacity has to match the size of the project. This is why starting small and providing the skills and support necessary for the community to expand the project gradually on their own is necessary. This is now how we operate with any new projects including the Grandmothers Kitchen Garden Project. The size of the space developed has to match the capacity of the community and their level of knowledge or else they will get overcome with challenges. When you scale down and slow down you can cultivate the tools necessary for a successful community based project which are rooted in communication, co-creation, collaboration and are community led. Cont’d in comments....
East Africa Project Manager and Refarmer Patrick P East Africa Project Manager and Refarmer Patrick Paul Kidega just finished co-teaching his first Advanced Permaculture Design Course alongside Maurice Obuya and Marco Bonfanti at Kisumu City Permaculture Academy in Kenya. The 10-day course was filled with important trainings on restoring Indigenous ecosystems, hydrating landscapes, seed saving and seed networks as well as fun activities like early morning farm yoga, field trips to local permaculture projects and even to Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria nearby. The graduation ceremony was yesterday and now Patrick is off on a little road trip in Kenya to visit our projects and partners from 2019. We will get back to you with stories and photos of old friends from Kakamega School For the Deaf and many more! In case you aren’t familiar with our 2019 projects you can see and read more by clicking the link in our bio and heading to East Africa Permaculture Project in the drop down menu. . . . . . . . #permaculturecourse #permacultureafrica #permaculturedesigncourse #advancedpermaculture #permaculturegraduation #farmyoga #seedexchange #seedsaving #seednetwork #ecosystemrestoration #regenerativemovement #regeneration #earthregeneration #changemakers #changetheworld #growfoodgrowchange #refarmers
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We operate on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

REFARMERS is a Canadian Registered Non-Profit Incorporation Number S0072619