Masthead Image 1
Masthead Image 2
Masthead Image 3
| | | | |

Gardening with Refugees and Immigrants

BNAN has begun an exciting new partnership with the Gardening through Refugee Organizations (GRO) group, a network of Mutual Assistance Association Coalitions (MAA) to connect refugee and immigrant populations with urban gardening and their new neighbors and to provide a traditional setting for the family elders to reconnect with their youth and continue their agrarian knowledge. The MAA Coalitions work to strengthen the collective voice of refugees and immigrants in Massachusetts and promote their adjustment, acculturation and integration into society.

Participating MAAs have included the Bosnian Community Center for Resource Development (BCCRD), Congolese Development Center (CDC), Eritrean Community Center (ECC), Ethiopian Community Mutual Assistance Association (ECMAA), Haitian American Public Health Initiatives (HAPHI), Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Center (RIAC), Russian Community Association of Massachusetts (RCAM), Somali Development Center (SDC), Southern Sudanese Solidarity Organization (SSSO), Sudanese American Integration & Development Center (SAIDC), Vietnamese American Civic Association (VACA). The project is in its second year in 2010.

This year, BNAN is leading community and backyard gardening workshops for select MAAs at City Natives and will provide gardening resources to these new Bostonian families. BNAN staff is also working to place the participants into vacant plots at existing community gardens in their neighborhoods as well to establish new temporary gardens for them. We are working with the Department of Neighborhood Development to identify parcels of vacant city land as well as the Parks and Recreation Department to build these gardens.

The GRO project has been an important step for BNAN in its efforts to reach out to new communities interested in urban gardening. If you have a vacant plot in your community garden that can be made available for these families or can contribute gardening tools for the workshop participants, please email Vidya Tikku at vidya@bostonnatural.org.

Video Link
Community Garden News

The Gardening through Refugee Organizations (GRO) project hosted a cooking-based nutrition workshop at City Natives in Mattapan in August 2010 for the Haitian and Vietnamese residents of Boston. Workshop content was translated in Haitian and Vietnamese. Participants learned about the composition of a healthy diet, healthy cooking options such as grilling both vegetables and meat with reduced salt and oil/fat contents. Attendees spanned all generations and got to taste the food and learn home made salad dressing recipes. View video excerpts of this cooking workshop, click here for video one and click here for video two.

Video Link and PDF
Photo Voice Project / The Story of GRO

During the growing season of 2010 GRO worked with the Institute for Community Health to facilitate a Photo Voice project. GRO participants volunteered to photograph their gardens and use those photos to share what gardening means to them. What follows is the story of GRO, told through their words and images of the gardeners themselves.

Click here to view the video.
Click here to download the pdf of these stories and photos.