Sustenance Festival – Food Justice Podcast

 

 

 

 

 

Project Summary

Sustenance Festival Food Justice Podcast

Purpose

Sustenance Festival is an annual multi-site arts, culture, and food festival organized by the Vancouver Park Board. Students will create 2-3 podcasts (total number to be determined) to help tell the Sustenance Festival story. Students will attend, support, and document 2-3 Sustenance-funded community events. Audio recordings and observations from these events will be combined with existing interview recordings to produce the podcasts.

Areas of Focus

  • Asset-based community development
  • Food, arts, and culture
  • Food justice
  • Audio storytelling development

Skills

  • Audio recording and documentation experience
  • Understanding of asset-based community development
  • Understanding of/interest in storytelling as food justice and decolonizing praxis

Location

  • Locations are flexible in and around Vancouver (to be arranged with interviewees)

Organization Information

Name

  • Vancouver Park Board

http://vancouver.ca/parks-recreation-culture/arts-and-culture.aspx/

  • Sustenance Festival

https://www.facebook.com/SustenanceFestival/


Vision + Mission

The Vancouver Park Board’s Culture Plan strives to develop, enliven, enhance, and promote arts, culture, and cultural diversity in our city in ways that benefit our citizens, creative community, businesses, and visitors. Centered around World Food Day, Sustenance Festival is a project of the Park Board and is a celebration of the intersections between art, culture and food. It is a city-wide festival featuring food-inspired workshops, exhibitions, talks, walks, dances and more – all taking place in community centres and public spaces throughout Vancouver. The Park Board’s mission is to provide, preserve, and advocate for parks and recreation services to benefit all people, communities, and the environment.

Guiding Principles + Values

Nurturing community engagement (also called public engagement, public participation, or public involvement) is a fundamental civic goal.

  • We believe that people who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process;
  • We promise that the public's contribution will influence the decision;
  • We promote sustainable decisions by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision-makers;
  • We seek out and facilitate the involvement of people potentially affected by or interested in a decision;
  • We seek input from participants in designing how they participate;
  • We provide participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way;
  • We communicate to participants how their input affected the decision.

Primary Contact

  • Contact Person(s): Brenda Racanelli, Arts Programmer
  • Email: brenda.racanelli@vancouver.ca
  • Address: 2099 Beach Ave., Vancouver BC, V6G 1Z4
  • Days of Work: Part-time with flexible hours
  • Preferred Method of Contact: Email

Project Description

The underrepresentation of particular populations/groups in Vancouver’s food movement reflects broader issues of exclusion in the dominant food movement across North America. These same groups also experience disproportionate effects of structural inequalities (such as racism and poverty), resulting in complex experiences of food insecurity; they are more likely to take up dangerous or underpaid food-related labour, experience higher rates of diet-related illnesses, and are often the target of nutrition education interventions (Slocum, 2006; Alkon, 2013). Sustenance is an opportunity to shift away from exclusion and needs-based approaches, towards asset-based and celebratory engagement with underrepresented groups.

Parks staff and partners are seeking to build on past successes in engaging culturally diverse groups, in order to strengthen Sustenance as a platform for intercultural connections and relationship building. Approaches to this work include identifying barriers to participation, and seeking out existing community food initiatives that have not been recognized as part of the dominant food movement. A key strategy for gathering this information is identifying and connecting with community leaders to hear their stories/insights/challenges/successes (December 2016-November 2017).

Building on this work, students will create 2-3 podcasts (total number to be determined) to help tell the Sustenance Festival story. Students will attend, support, and document 2-3 Sustenance-funded community events. Audio recordings and observations from these events will be combined with existing interview recordings to produce the podcasts.

Goal and Project Scope

  • Sustenance Festival is an annual arts, culture, and food initiative organized by the Vancouver Park Board. The Sustenance Community Fund offers small grants to community organizations to host events or activities that align with Sustenance’s vision and goals. Examples include community kitchens and community dialogue circles.
  • As Parks staff and partners seek to understand and address under-representation of marginalized groups from the “food movement,” the Community Fund is a way for Sustenance to support community-based food and arts engagement in diverse community settings. Students will attend events, record audio, and volunteer at the events as needed.
  • By using creative and narrative forms, the podcasts will help to tell the story of Sustenance Festival, communicating the importance of community engagement through arts and food.

Skills Preferred

  • Audio-visual documentation experience
  • Understanding of asset-based community development
  • Lived and/or working experience with marginalized and equity seeking groups
  • Understanding of/interest in storytelling as food justice and decolonizing praxis

Preferred Days of Week and Hours

  • Community partner works part-time with flexible hours. Communication by email is preferred.

Project/Partner Orientation

The student group will meet with the community partner for orientation to the project. Detailed background information will be provided at that time. A volunteer orientation for the Vancouver Food Summit will also be arranged separately.

The following resources are suggested to provide context for the project:

Expected Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

I hope students will learn about…

  • The connections between food, stories, and justice

I think students will come to appreciate…

  • The never-finished process of community development

Students will develop …

  • An understanding of barriers to participating in the “food movement,” and a greater awareness of diverse forms of food systems participation

Organizational Outcomes

  • A clearer understanding of the assets and needs of community groups as they access the Sustenance Community Fund
  • Direct support for community groups accessing the Sustenance Community Fund
  • Podcasts that can be shared with project participants as well as community partners who are interested in food systems and intercultural inclusion
source: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:LFS350/Projects/W2018/sustenance