New York 2 New Orleans Group 6

This week the New York 2 New Orleans Coalition (ny2no.org) began a 12 day service learning trip hosted by Our School at Blair Grocery. Young people from New York began their 6th trip out of 10 this summer to learn about just food systems, sustainable community development, and an effective way to approach global challenges on a local level.

Starting with an environmental justice/levee tour on the first day, students are introduced to challenges New Orleans residents face, ranging from environmental degradation, racial and economic inequality, to food accessibility.

Students are also introduced to the concept of upstream problem solving, and how to identify the different factoring issues that create a challenge. During the tour students are challenged to differentiate effective solutions to problems, and ineffective solutions , such as the difference between a food system that is locally based versus a system reliant on transportation across the country.

Progressing through the week the group participated in several workshops led by New York 2 New Orleans organizers and Our School at Blair Grocery staff.

Sprouts workshop!

Cory Ashby teaching a food justice workshop.

During the workshop with Cory, students also discussed the impacting factor of young people in a movement about food justice, and about how youth can work coherently with adults to create action.

As the end of the week approaches, NY2NO and OSBG will work on applying problems and solutions discussed in New Orleans to New York, and start to think about what a sustainable New York City can look like in all aspects of the word!

Learning and Growing with Escuela Tlatelolco

Last week Our School at Blair Grocery had the pleasure of hosting an amazing group of students and teachers from Denver's Escuela Tlatelolco, a free school developed by Rudolpho Corky Gonzalez and others from the Chicano/Mexicano movement based on the concept that providing students with a foundation of cultural pride and self-esteem, these young people could obtain an education that would help them go on to become successful adults who would benefit the community in return.



As we do with most groups, the first day of their stay began with Our Levee Tour, exploring the compounding challenges facing residents in both pre- and post- Katrina New Orleans, throughout the gulf coast, and thier relationships to the rest of the country - starting at the place where, following Katrina, a barge came the Lower 9th Ward Levee (below).


Understanding the interconnectedness, of global problems, and developing ways to consider upstream problem solving is always an important take-away from the tour that we discuss when asking ourselves and each other, "what destroyed the bayou?" (below)


Students and teachers together participated in workshops facilitated by OSBG staff and interns, and NY2NO youth organizers. Participants learned about the challenges New Orleans, and particularly the Lower 9th Ward faces to food security, the devestating social and ecological impacts of the BP oil spill on the gulf coast region, and explored the power of youth to make change through urban farming and sustainable community development.

One day of thier visit was spent learning about an supporting the further development of our regional partnerships in Tangipahoa Parish. We all put in a lot of hard work, and made a lot of progress towards preparing the land for fall planting!!!

When we weren't putting in hard work, or engaging in deep and critical learning, we were learning from each other. We shared stories, ate food together, drummed, danced, celebrated life and culture, and built trust and solidarity.

"I shed tears of anguish

As I see my children disappear

Behind the shroud of mediocrity

Never to look back to remember me.

I am Joaquin.

I must fight and win

this struggle for my sons,

and they must know from me
Who I am."

From: "I am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquin" by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales, 1928 - 2005

Local, Regional, and National networking

The past couple months at OSBG have been extremely productive! So far, since May 20, more than 200 YCCA and NY2NO college and high school students from around the country have continued to work with OSBG and rotate between the Lower 9th Ward, Hammond and Tangipahoa in the north, and Houma and Dulac in southern Louisiana. Collectively, we have been working to develop a regional cooperative of farmers, so that residents of these various communities can begin eating healthy, organic, locally grown food. Ultimately seizing control of their own food system.






In the 9th Ward, volunteers have been working closely with our students at OSBG to further develop the various sites of our growing urban farm. They have also run a number of educational workshops to raise consciousness about food justice, environmental justice, social justice, and the deeply rooted connections between these various forms of oppression.


Our students have also begun to develop an outreach plan in order to involve more residents of the community in the various components of our project.

In Tangipahoa, volunteers have been working with local farmer Wayne to build chicken coops, grow vegetables, herd cattle, and have all but finished constructing the volunteer cottage. We are also now beginning to develop an outreach plan for the village of Tangipahoa to start involving more and more local young people in the farm.

Hammond is also coming along quickly. Queen Afi, or Sunflower, has shared her unique energy with our groups. Instilling with them a strong sense of spirituality, passion, and a newfound connection to the environment around us.

In exchange, we are helping her transform her now empty acres of land into vegetable and herb gardens, as well as reconstructing her stage so that she can hold community events on a regular basis.

70206 Tarpley

This past week, a group of YCCA members stayed in Tangipahoa, part of a growing partnership with the mayor of the village. Fifteen students from the CUNY colleges and Wesleyan University went to Tangipahoa for the second half of their two-week trip, the first group to do so for an extended period of time.

Since YCCA/NY2NO groups will be visiting Tangipahoa in rotating groups through August, much of the work that has to be done deals with turning the two cabins into functional living spaces. By the end of the second day, the group constructed seven bunk beds and installed an air conditioner.

Besides renovating the living quarters, a large part of this Tangipahoa partnership deals with supporting local farmers. The group sent students to help out at two local farms, with farmers Naomi and Wayne. While we are still struggling to define the goals of this rural-urban youth partnership, we hope that we are beginning to strengthen our relationship with Tangipahoa Village and its local farmers.

Home sweet home!

Just like the old saying goes: We made our beds, and slept in them too.

The bus ride there was just a little bit crowded.

This bus attracted a lot of attention throughout our stay.

6 AM sunrise at Wayne's farm.

Catherine

Oil, Land Loss and Life in Terrebonne Parish

What will be the short-term and long-term consequences of the gulf oil spill to the ecological and social systems of southern Louisiana? What do communities throughout Louisiana (and the U.S) need to know and be able to do to support each other in times of need?

Our School at Blair Grocery and young people from the national Youth Coalition for Community Action took a trip to Southern Louisiana to explore these questions in a series of conversations and experiences with members of the community and scientists doing work in the area. Our goals for the trip were to (1) establish mutually beneficial relationships between OSBG and organizations people and organizations in southern Louisiana; (2) to identify opportunities for service in in southern Louisiana that address significant community needs; and (3) to begin research into the development of a curriculum unit that addresses the ecological and social impacts of the oil spill and continued wetlands depletion.

At the Dulac Community Center we joined by Bayou Grace, an organization working to provide relief to those being impacted by the oil spill, learned about issues of land loss associated with continued wetlands depletion. We discussed the communities relationship to the oil industry and the impact of the oil spill on those working in the fishing industry - the two primary industries providing employment to those living in Terrebonne Parish - however, now much of the fishing has stopped.

We had the incredible opportunity to meet with members of the United Houma Nation and discuss both the history and current status of the community, relationships to the fishing and oil industry and challenges that lie ahead. We learned of thier plans to develop a Cajun French emersion school for native Houma children and plans to start a garden. We are excited to continue to explore opportunities to work together to support the unique and similar needs we each face in our communities.

We ended the day with a crawfish boil on the bayou, continuing to think about what we heard and learned over the day, and eager to figure out how we can support these communities in this time of need.

The next morning we made our way to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON), a coastal laboratory intended to coordinate and stimulate Louisiana's activities in marine research and education.

LUMCON provides coastal laboratory facilities to Louisiana universities, and conducts research and educational programs in the marine sciences. We had the opportunity to speak to one of the lead researchers, who gave us a tour and answered questions.

We hope to continue building our relationships with everyone we had the opportunity to meet with in Terrebonne Parish and at LUMCON.

Seeding Change

At Our School at Blair Grocery we have greatly expanded our sprouts and microgreen production and sales thanks to the persistence and dedication of Ryan, seen above teaching a few of the girls from the neighborhood the art of seeding. The food that we grow is critically important, and equally as important are the seeds of change we're planting in the hearts and minds of children in the Lower 9th Ward.

Community Building, Young Folk Style

Yesterday we had a community barbeque and crawfish boil at the school. About 30 community members joined us, adding to the 40 young people here for Food Justice Summer to make a great party. The event was a joint effort, planned by the students at Our School at Blair Grocery, and participants of Food Justice Summer. The young people spent the last week going around the neighborhood to let people know about the barbeque, and see if anyone wanted to help. They clearly found a lot of people who knew how to cook really well, because Freddie from across the street cooked the crawfish, Ms. Mary cooked the rice and beans, and Vince's mom cooked the chicken and Patatoe salad, and everything was DELICIOUS.

Some young folk who go to Frederick Douglas High school and are a part of the Summer Excellence program came to visit us and showed and taught us all some ballroom hip-hop that they'd been working on. We are excited to be hanging out with them a lot more this summer, and have been sending some people over to see them every afternoon. Tomorrow they're spending the whole day at the school doing some farming with us.

We also had our new T-shirts on display, which another group of students and Food Justice Summer participants have been working on all week. We're all sporting them with pride!

Tomorrow we have another group coming in from YCCA, bringing our count up to almost 50 from Pitzer, Wesleyan, Adelphi, NYU, Hunter, Brooklyn College, Green Mountain College, Clark Atlanta, Bard, SUNY New Paltz, Binghamton, and more!!