Some upcoming events:
- Feb 21, (9:30-6): The Northeast Healthy Soil Network Symposium: Preparing the Northeast Agricultural Sector for an Uncertain Future
February 2020 Events
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December Events!
Here are some events coming up December 2019:
- December 7, 10-3:30: Sunrise Boston and 350 MA Racial and Climate Justice Training
Volunteer Opportunity!
The Asian Community Development Corporation recently cleaned up an abandoned lot next to the Chinatown Gate and has built a pop up garden in collaboration with the Pao Arts Center. They are looking for donations and hoping to have volunteers staff the garden so that people from the community can use the space more often. If you are interested or able, reach out to celina.fernando@asiancdc.org.
Image from Chinatown Backyard opening day. May 25th, 2019
Here are their needs: Thurs-Fridays: Shift 1 is 2-5pm; Shift 2 is 5-8pm
Sat-Sundays: Shift 1 is 10am-1pm; 1pm-4pm
Roles would include:
- engaging visitors & encouraging them to share feedback/hopes for the space
- responding to visitors’ questions & communicating updates
- maintaining the space & encouraging positive use of space (especially reinforcing no dogs peeing/pooping, no public urination, no smoking)
Donation needs and services include: general donations, building more beds (possibly a greenhouse), rodent control issues, and working with new gardeners.
November Events!
Here are a list of upcoming events of interest. Let us know if you have any more we should add:
- November 19, 2019: Slow Food conversation: Worker Justice = Food Justice at Remnant Brewing in Somerville at 6 pm
- November 20-24: 2019 Biodynamic Conference, Cultivating Relationships, Lake George, NY
- November 20-24: AYNI Fall Seeds Program, (it looks like the sign up for this year is full but sign up here to be notified about next year)
We’re back!
This year FJL is bringing back our website. We might reformat some things along the way but we wanted to make sure we have a platform to keep you all up- to- date on what’s happening. For our first post, we wanted to share two items of interest. First, an article by Friedman’s own Melissa Gordon on Food First:
The second item is a map highlighting calls for land reparations across the county. Check it out below:
Support Puerto Rico here
Support “Regrow Puerto Rico” by donating here: https://www.gofundme.com/5markets
There are many organizations working to raise funds for Puerto Rico and Friedman Justice League has chosen to pool our efforts to Support “Regrow Puerto Rico”. Please consider donating at the link above and encourage your network to spread the word.
We would like to extend a hearty thanks for giving of your time and reflection to the Puerto Rico Lunch n’Learn last week. It was clearly of great interest to the minds and concerned hearts on campus, and we’re grateful for what all of you brought to the conversation.
FARMWORKER AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
The Friedman Justice League (FJL) invites you to an awareness campaign of activities and events to explore farmworker and labor justice. We are excited to host and partner with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) during the campaign. All are welcome and encouraged to participate and contribute as much as possible. We hope to see you!
WHAT’S IN YOUR FOOD?, Installation and Dialogue
Ongoing, 4/17-25 The Friedman School
The installation will be a visual representation of nutritional and social impacts of, “What’s in your food?” It will be posted throughout the Friedman School public spaces to inspire reflection and dialogue throughout the campaign. Created by FJL members, Alejandra Cabrera and Julie Kurtz.
CIW’S CAMPAIGN FOR FAIR FOOD, Seminar
Wednesday, 4/19 Behrakis Auditorium 12:15-1:15pm
During the Friedman Seminar, guests from CIW will share about their Campaign for Fair Food and how farm labor justice connections to nutrition, agriculture, and food systems policy. Bring your questions! The seminar will be livestreamed at http://nutrition.tufts.edu/livestream/seminar
POSTER-MAKING SESSION, Organizing
Thursday, 4/20 Jaharis Café 11-1:30pm
The poster-making session will prepare signs, chants, and testimonials for the Wendy’s Boycott on Saturday. This is a great way to engage creatively and express your support for farmworker and labor justice. Please bring cardboard, poster board, markers, paints, etc!
WENDY’S BOYCOTT, Direct Action
Saturday, 4/22 Wendy’s 551 Boylston Street 12-2pm
CIW is hosting this consumer and citizen direct action to urge Wendy’s to join the Fair Food
Program, which verifies humane working conditions and fair wages for workers across the supply chain. You can support by attending, helping the poster-making session, and spreading the word!
BEYOND CIW: STRATEGIES FOR FARM LABOR JUSTICE, Lunch and Learn
Tuesday, 4/25 Jaharis 254 12-1:15pm
Following the Seminar and Direct Action, FJL will host a brown bag lunch and learn to discuss
farmworker and labor justice. What have we learned? Where are we going? This is a way to
engage in an intimate, small-group setting.
Screening and Discussion of Kombit: The Cooperative
JOIN The Friedman Justice League and Tufts Institute for the Environment for a movie screening with discussion to follow. There will be food!
Want to get Involved in FJL or TIE?! Learn more at:
FJL – https://friedmanjusticeleagueblog.wordpress.com/
TIE – http://environment.tufts.edu/
ABOUT THE FILM
Kombit Film Crew
Once known as the richest agricultural country in the Caribbean, Haiti has been wracked by instability and natural disasters. Decades of decline have taken their toll on Haiti’s people, and today the country is 98% deforested with little of its once prosperous agricultural industry enduring. When Timberland commits to creating a sustainable intervention in Haiti that will lead to 5 million trees in 5 years, they work to find partners that understand the harsh realities of aid work but share the vision to build something sustainable.
Over the course of 5 years, we follow Timberland’s support of a nascent partnership between a Haitian agronomist and a former NGO leader that commit to empowering communities of farmers to plant millions of trees while improving their crop yields. As the end of Timberland’s financial support approaches, SFA’s leaders race to develop new markets and opportunities for Haitian farmers that will endure and ensure a sustainable, greener future.
Digging Deeper: Foodways
As a part of Digging Deep week in February, the Friedman Justice League led a week of storytelling, discussion, and reflection on issues of food justice in the world, country, and Friedman campus. FJL organized a weeklong interactive bulletin for Friedman students to contribute experiences and reflections on their experiences with food, called “Digging Deeper: Foodways.” It prompted students each day with a new theme.
The themes and reflections are recorded anonymously below, as compiled by Sarah Chang and Kirsten Archer.
Digging Deeper: Foodways
Foodways – (def.) The cultural, social and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food. Foodways often refers to the intersection of food in culture, traditions, and history. (Wikipedia)
Instructions: In a few brief sentences, share your experience or thoughts with regard to each prompt.
Monday: Bounty – Celebration Meals
Describe a celebratory meal that is important to your family, culture, and/or religious upbringing.
“Lunch after church on Saturday (yes, Saturday). We often would have a potluck in someone’s home and after the dinner we’d pick at leftovers and dessert. I’d sit under the table and listen to the adults talk, work on a drawing or read a book. My belly so full.”
“Cheerio Dinner. In my family we marked special days by not cooking. Instead we eat cereal – (always Cheerios) and sit on top of the counters letting our feet dangle and hanging out. It feels fun, informal, and special. We do this a lot on birthdays, holidays and on random, unexpected nights probably because my parents just didn’t feel like cooking because they were just feeling tired and/or lazy. Ha! As a kid it was awesome!”
“International Thanksgiving. My family hosts Thanksgiving each year and our tradition has been to host many of my parents’ international students/colleagues. It produced a huge bounty of people and food from different traditions.”
“Yom Kippur Breakfast is always monumental. After 25 hours of fasting on what is considered the holiest day of the Jewish year the piles of salads, bagels, schmear, pickled fish, babka, and cookies is truly overwhelming in the best way.”
“’Pasni’ for the infant. At 6 months of age, the child in the family is introduced to the rice eating ceremony called ‘Pasni.’ Here, there are various religious practices and many relatives join in to the occasion. ‘Pasni’ is a significant day for many families in Nepal.”
Tuesday: Hunger – The Reality of Scarcity
Describe an experience of food insecurity, hunger, or a time of want.
“After I was accepted to nutrition school, I learned that my grandma actually went to college for nutrition in the 1930s! In college, however, she spent all her savings on tuition and couldn’t afford to eat – she lost a lot of weight. In her junior year, she was told that she couldn’t become a nutrition major because she couldn’t care for herself. She was so ashamed by her situation that she never told her supervisor that she was going hungry – and she had to switch careers.”
“My first extended stay from home, I was shocked at how the loss of my dad’s cooking made me feel uneasy. I was in a foreign country, surrounded by their food customs, and couldn’t articulate my wants and needs for white rice, fish, and steamed vegetables. I didn’t want to be impolite but knew that I needed a reminder of home.”
“Hunger observed. I used to believe that if you were really hungry you should be willing to eat anything. Then I began working in a Midwestern food bank. Muslims and Hindus were hungry. Vegans and vegetarians were hungry. Hunger doesn’t distinguish from allergy or disease. Each of these people deserved the dignity of choice.”
Wednesday: Interactions with Inclusion and Otherness
Describe an experience when you were marked as an outsider or insider because of what you did (or didn’t) eat (for dietary, religious, economic, cultural, other reasons).
“Dog food. I have distinct memories of eating Chinese snacks at school and being made fun of or ostracized by other students. I remember one student asking me if I was eating dog food. ‘More for me,’ I’d think.”
“Vegetarian. Back in the 90s when I became a vegetarian it was a lot less popular and common. A very typical response to me was ‘do you really thing you’re making a difference?’ It was pretty irritating to justify my personal choice. Luckily, this no longer happens.”
“My family is Caribbean. I grew up in a part of the West Coast that had very few people of color. I was sometimes embarrassed that my family ate such flavorful and fragrant food that was foreign to my peers. But then I realized that it was part of my identity, and not just some other thing that made me different. I’ve learned to be proud.”
Thursday: Trying Something New
Appreciating and accepting a new experience with food.
“I have a couple friends from Mexico who I’ve spent many a night cooking with. Once they had a bag of crickets with chili spice shipped to them from Mexico. They were eating them like popcorn! I tried a couple with my eyes closed. They were actually quite tasty, but I couldn’t quite get over the idea of eating whole crickets! Chirp, chirp.”
“Wisconsin-themed party/food. Recently, I had a chance to experience Wisconsin-themed food (or food common to Wisconsin). There were a variety of cheese, sausages, sauerkraut, cookies, salad, and drinks. The food was very satisfying.”
“Tea leaves. I recently tried Burmese cuisine for the first time. I was totally open to the new flavors but was a tad reluctant at the thought of a fermented tealeaf salad. Fermented tealeaves? Maybe not for me. But when I tried it I found myself totally enamored with the flavors and textures. I love it!”
Friday: Reflections
What does Foodways mean to you?
“Foodways means recognizing and honoring traditions and experiences of food – one’s food roots. The smell of mom’s kitchen and the garden in grandpa’s yard and the restaurant where we celebrate our family.”
“Food roots, I like that! I think foodways can also be lens by which we can express ourselves, our cultures and traditions, our life experience and worldview. It can include ways in which perceptions of our food experience can weaken or strengthen our sense of self.”
Digging Deep: Creative Expressions of Food Justice
The Friedman Justice League is pleased to announce Digging Deep: Creative Expressions of Food Justice. The week will include a discussion group, a Seminar, a Photo Collage Exhibit, and an interactive bulletin in the student lounge. Join us February 22-26. We hope to promote an engaging and transformative dialogue.
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