By Katie Stobbart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: September 18, 2013
“We need to start bringing it back to a local level,” Ashley Aune, co-founder of Oxfam UFV, says.
Food security is the central theme weaving together GROW week, a series of events from September 23 to 26 planned by Aune and co-founder Laura Rickard.
GROW is part of a globally-focused campaign by Oxfam that explores the links between gender disparity and how food is produced and distributed. It’s something Aune and Rickard want students to think about in a local context.
“The connection between food security, women’s rights, and climate change is something that is really tangible for students and can be talked about on a global level as Oxfam does, but it’s also really related to the things we’re doing here,” Rickard explains.
With this in mind, Oxfam UFV started a garden club on campus, taking on the garden around U-House and setting out container gardens along the green to introduce the idea of community gardening. It was harder than they thought.
“Ashley did a lot of the gardening this summer and found out how much work it is to keep it going; the aphids killed our kale,” Rickard notes. “We’ve lost touch with how challenging being a farmer can be. … They need more support than we think.”
Aune explains how the experience augmented her understanding of food security.
“Once you actually get your hands in the soil and put that work into it, you realize the value of paying a little more to support your farmers,” she says. “It’s their livelihoods we’re talking about, and the sweat, time, and energy put into producing our food – we need to start valuing it.”
She adds that the next step on campus was to bring in an educational component.
“That’s where GROW week comes in. As students, we can make a difference. Something as simple as starting a container garden on your balcony … support your local farmers. Demand fair trade products. Ask where your food is coming from,” Aune says.
The week kicks off on September 23 with a film screening of Food Security: It’s In Your Hands, which talks about food movements in the lower mainland and on Vancouver Island starting at 7 p.m. at AfterMath.
On September 25, students can get a hands-on education with two free workshops put on in partnership with the Langley Environmental Partners Society (LEPS). The canning workshop from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. is followed by a container vegetable garden workshop from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., both at U-House on the Abbotsford campus.
Though the workshops are free, Oxfam UFV encourages students and faculty to make a small donation if they can.
“[LEPS] is doing this free of charge for us, so if we can get a few donations to chip towards them, it would be greatly appreciated,” Aune says.
GROW week wraps up on September 26 in Alumni Hall. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., Gloria Ceron, an Oxfam partner from the Salvadorean Women Organization for Peace (ORMUSA) in El Salvador, will speak. Ceron is the coordinator of the local development program at the Organization of Salvadorian Women, which works with poor rural and urban women including maquila workers.
“Oxfam Canada is flying her in for our gender justice summit in Ottawa, then she’ll be flying into Vancouver for a couple days and we’ve managed to secure her for an evening here at UFV,” Aune explains. “It’s huge – we’ve never had the opportunity to have a partner speak firsthand about [her] involvement on the ground.”
Aune and Rickard hope GROW week will be a good introduction for people who aren’t familiar with Oxfam and that the events will not only foster understanding of food security but also spark interest in the group on campus, which currently has about 15 members.
“We’re looking for new energy, fresh faces to come in,” Aune says. “We want to bring new life to [Oxfam UFV] … It’s not just UFV you’re impacting, you’re part of a bigger movement.”
