PROJECT PROPOSAL#1 

    She is Sourced - Summer 2019 

Aim: to secure funding for horticulture education and food advocacy experience through

the Summer/growing season in London, to nurture my

vision in becoming a Regenerative Food Educator.

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                        Funding request: £6,097 GBP

(For long-term investment sponsorship to enable She Is Sourced to become an educational charity for low-income and unemployed women, please contact me directly to discuss.)

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About She Is Sourced

Acclaimed environmental filmmaker John D. Liu has called the restoration and regeneration of the Earth's living systems "the great work of our time." At the same time, the World Wildlife Fund says that I belong to "the last generation that can save nature."

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In the middle of a bustling modern city, I have decided to take up this challenge by volunteering five days a week at a range of farms, charities, social enterprises and community allotments, in order to deepen my knowledge about how we humans can live in greater harmony with Nature through our relationship with food.

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Over the next four months, instead of working 40 hours a week in a farmshop where I serve and sell organic food and produce, I will volunteer at different organisations within food and sustainability to deepen my experience in vegetable, fruit and herb cultivation, urban beekeeping, designing and building food forests, and visiting local schools to teach about sustainable food through an educational charity.

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Like many other young people right now, I  want to help avoid mass human extinction. 

However, I cannot do it without external support. 

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My journey to this point began at the end of 2017, whilst studying for an acupuncture degree and working for an organic chocolate company part-time, I got to see first-hand how complex it is to source food grown sustainably around the world. I worked with cocoa beans from Madagascar and Venezuela, and came to appreciate the long route those beans must travel to make the chocolate bars that we eat in the UK.

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The experience brought home to me how so many of us, particularly those of us who live in cities - are completely disconnected from the sources of our food and how we often consume without a second thought as to the impacts of our culinary choices. I then subsequently withdrew from my studies and pledged to make it my life's work to help fix the broken food system and to regenerate the Earth.

Over the past 21 months, I have put my career in holistic medicine on the back burner in order to gain a wide range of experiences within the food industry: at an organic chocolate factory, as a trainee chef in a Spanish restaurant, on an organic farm in the Scottish Highlands, for a social enterprise fighting food poverty in London and for one of the UK's most sustainable farms - where I currently work as a Team Member and Sustainability Champion in one of their London farmshops.

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The hours have often been long. With work,  daily travel and volunteering combined, I do around 60 hours a week. At times I have struggled, financially and energy-wise, but I have gained a solid start in the industry. Realistically, however, I have only scratched the surface of what I must learn about growing food in a regenerative way, which is a critical skill for any human being hoping to thrive in the future. 

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Whilst I know that I am very privileged to be working at a top notch organic food company, which I have thoroughly enjoyed -  it is a low wage job with no career progress in food growing and I have very little energy or finances for advancing my education in regenerative food cultivation and advocacy work. Whilst I understand that we all have to start somewhere (the bottom of the industry), we are running out of time. 

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As the latest scientific reports indicate, the decisions we make in the next ten years is crucial. There are millions of people right now who are unconsciously destroying the earth through a lack of awareness about our food choices, or simply too poor to make better choices. We therefore need a global army of Regenerative Food Educators and ReWilders who have experienced lots of seasons and who have years of practise in growing food and creating sustainable local food chains. 

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This is where you (may) come in to it: by supporting me via She is Sourced, you will help to accelerate my quest towards becoming a full-time Regenerative Food Educator.  

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The organisations I will be volunteering with are:

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Child's Hill Allotment Society

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This is my local allotment which has existed for

many years.  I already volunteer here on Monday

afternoons and will continue to do so along with

my food-growing mentor Sally.

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Sutton Community Farm

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Sutton Community Farm is a community-owned farm. It was started in 2010 in response to a community need with the aim to increase access to fresh, healthy, sustainable food and provide a shared space for people to cultivate skills, get exercise and make new friends.

The farm sits on a beautiful 7.1 acre smallholding with views towards the skyline of central London. I will be here every Tuesday as a seasonal 'Sustainable Farming Assistant'.

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Progress London

Progress London works with inner city food growing

across ten boroughs of London. They have

mechanisms in place to get bodies of work,

like events and initiatives, achieved with no cost to

the management or the residents.  Their aim is to

nurture empowerment and create common

knowledge of wellbeing through organic food/plant

growth, public art, land redevelopment, and  

community resilience. I will continue volunteering here regularly (most weeks) to gain experience in community food growing, urban farming and regenerating derelict public spaces into food gardens. 

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BeeUrban

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BeeUrban is a honeybee-centric social enterprise based in Kennington, South London, which aims to positively influence the urban environment through supporting local people and promoting positive, ecologically sound practice around urban greening, building, farming and particularly bee-keeping. I will be volunteering here every Thursday to learn how to enhance and regenerate biodiversity through bee-keeping and sustainable living.

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School Food Matters ​

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School Food Matters campaigns for fresh sustainable food in schools and promotes food education through cooking, growing and visits to farms. Its mission is to ensure that every child enjoys fresh sustainable food at school and understands where their food comes from. I will be here one day a week in which I will gain experience in sustainable food education in London, as well as helping cook and grow food for for children in schools. 

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I am also open to volunteering for other charities within food and sustainability that I come across (aside from the ones I have listed above), I will try and get as much experience in different areas of food advocacy as possible -  I also aim to visit a few farms and horticulture enterprises outside of London within the four month period too. 

All volunteering experiences will cover a full volunteer day, five days a week.

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I am certain that this 4-month period will give me a solid foundation in the principles and practices of of regenerative food production within a complex urban environment, and empower me to initiate or support similar initiatives elsewhere in future.

Future plans for She is Sourced

If I am able to secure full funding for this initiative, I will apply to extend the funding further to support other women who are wanting to pursue regenerative education and/or horticulture throughout the 2020 growing season in London. 

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All voluntary days will be signed and authorised by the manager of each organisation. 

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The funding will cover five full days of work experience at London Living Wage (LLW) for four months.

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