Community Experience

Team Growers

We have a series of short documentaries revolving around the lives of certain Woburn community members. In these documentaries, the community members of have spoke of what the situation is like in Woburn, what do they do to deal with food insecurity, and their personal stories that can inspire other community members to plant crops to counteract food insecurity.

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Interview #1: Rudy

Rudy saw our team gardening from up above his apartment building and came down to speak to us. He said it reminded him of how when he was younger, he used to be his grandmother’s lunch carrier when she used to work in a cane field.

When Rudy got a bit older, he started about 6 garden beds in his home where he grew many vegetables such as cabbage, green beans, tomatoes, and carrots. He loves gardening and his favourite fruit is bananas!

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Interview #2: Ghashyan

Ghanshyam was out on his usual walk, enjoying the sunlight and getting some vitamin D when he saw the students gardening and decided to stop for a chat. He talks about how food prices, particularly produce, are quite costly nowadays. He discusses how quite a few people in his area use the local food bank. Lack of space is a major problem when it comes to growing produce, especially when living in apartment buildings with small balconies. Personally, Ghanshyam grows some tomatoes and leafy greens such as cilantro and fenugreek in his home. He suggests that perhaps having access to garden beds by his building is a good solution to make growing more accessible for community members.

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Interview #3: Lina

Lina was out in her garden bed, picking out some leafy greens for a fresh salad when we spotted her and stopped to chat. In her garden bed, she grows tomatoes, peppers, sweet peppers, cucumbers, and some lettuce. Lina says that gardening is very easy to do, and not much pressure. Anyone can do it! She uses nitrate to help her plants grow.

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Interview #4 & #5: Ranjodh & Zeenath

This interview combines two separate interviews, one with Ranjodh and Anonymous who are students at Woburn Collegiate Institute. Anonymous helps his grandparents with their large backyard garden. They help their grandparents grow tomatoes, garlic, zucchinis, and cucumber. They discuss how some barriers to growing food are lack of knowledge and space. As for Ranjodh, he has zero experience in gardening but still came out to help!

The second interview is with Zeenath, who has been a resident of the Woburn community for 16-17 years. She joined Leah to aid in supplying food and books to people in her apartment building during the pandemic. Her interest in growing food started during the pandemic when there wasn’t much else to do. She grows vegetables and herbs such as green chillies, cilantro, fenugreek, tomatoes, and mint on her apartment balcony. Zeenath didn’t have much growing knowledge to start out with, so she used Youtube to learn. She also uses banana peels as fertilizer for her plants!

Problems in the Community

Mahmoud and Nikhil walked along with a resident of the community who has been living here for 13 years. This was her first home since she moved to Canada, and has been here ever since. She took them around the community and showed them the problems residents are facing. Below are just some of the issues that Mahmoud and Nikhil think need to be addressed:

There is no ramp that leads to the park for accessibility for disabled residents and parents that use a stroller.

During winter there is no snow cleanup done on the path children and parents use to go to school. This makes it hard for residents that are new to the country and have no proper winter wear.

A newly built gardening spot from what it seems but it is too small and the residents are not even informed about what it is for.

There is a lack of communication

The playground and newly built garden are in a very unsafe location next to the residents’ garbage disposal and parking spots.

There are no slow-down signs or bumps to prevent cars from speeding in the apartment complex.

A lot of the residents are actually growing plants on their balconies and apartments. (there is initiative and potential for growth).

A community garden would be ideal for residents getting together and sharing and garnering knowledge on growing plants.

Improper use of space (a lot of potential spots that can be used to build gardening beds are wasted without even the grass being taken care off)

Walk to school and to the garden that was built

Renovated buildings residents are not allowed to grow anything on their private balconies.

Building management is uncooperative or very slow in replying to the residents.

There seems to be some neglect of the area in general compared to higher-income areas.

Growing Videos

Watch our project partner/Influencer’s videos about growing different vegetables and fruits below

You can also find more of this content on IG :@creative_explained
and YT (click the icon below)

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