urban farming Archives - Fulbright Student Program Blog

Enrichment Foreign Fulbright Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project

Planting the Seeds of Hope

June 17, 2015

Urban agriculture is a thriving industry with unlimited potential. It is not just about food, it is, first and foremost, about people and their relationship to food and the environment. My Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project journey continued to flourish while I met creative and innovative urban farmers in each city.

Fulbright Student from Iraq, Saja Al Quzweeni, on board the Millennial Trains Project

In New Orleans, I visited the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). NOCCA is a regional, pre-professional arts training center that offers students intensive instruction in culinary arts, dance, media arts, music, theater arts, visual arts, and creative writing. The Culinary Arts Department offers a four-year course of study for talented students who aspire to be chefs. The Culinary Arts program was developed in collaboration with the Emeril Lagasse Foundation and is supported by Johnson & Wales University. The students are provided with the opportunity to work side by side with leading master chefs who serve as professional mentors.

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Enrichment Foreign Fulbright Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project

Urban Farming Across America

May 29, 2015

Fulbright-MTP Train Participant Saja Al Quzweeni from Iraq, left, interviews Skeets Rapier, the Director of Operations at The Renewable Republic, about his aquaponics, solarpowered organic farm. Photo by MTP Train’s Jenny Gottstein

My Fulbright-MTP project is surveying the best practices in urban agriculture across different American Cities. The anticipated outcome of this journey is to design a holistic model of urban farming that connects people with their land and each other. Urban agriculture will be utilized to offer not just food, but also a terrain in which people come together and build their community.

The project started in Los Angeles where I visited, Women Organizing Resources Knowledge Service or WORKS. The organization’s mission is to provide affordable housing with affordable food for lower-income communities, and for people with disabilities and illnesses. My interview with Channa Grace, President of WORKS, inspired me as she used her personal experiences to leverage the status of the disadvantaged. WORKS also invites people to change their lives and adopt healthy eating habits through growing their own produce.

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