ISFS was contacted by some members of the Gitanmaax Band and non-members partners in early December regarding the possibility of starting a farm school for their band in Hazelton, BC. Payal Batra started the conversation with Pauline Rubinato, Finance Director of the Gitanmaax Band; Bonnie McCreery, Instructor at the Gitskan Wet’suwet’en Education Society (GWES), and Josette Wier, a volunteer for this project.

Gitanmaax Band learned about the Tsawwassen Farm School and was very keen to start something similar on their land for their community. They saw the need to build local capacity and resiliency around food production and as such want members of their community to be able to grow food. In order to move this conversation along, Gitanmaax Band invited Caroline Chiu and Payal Batra to Hazelton to meet with everyone and to facilitate a 2-day brainstorming session on what this farm school could possibly look like.

Caroline Chiu and Payal Batra had two very productive days learning about the land, the people, the culture, the community needs and the Band. At the workshop, we had instructors from GWES, volunteer members of the community, members of the Senden Community Farm and a select few from Gitanmaax Band. One drawback was that members of the six other neighboring Bands were not able to attend. On the first day, we mainly listened to what each member or community group had to say and their visions of achieving food security goals. It was essential for us to understand the lay of the land and key stakeholders before providing any advice. On day 2, we toured different community sites around town and the possible sites for this farm school. To end the workshop, Payal and Caroline presented four possible options for the Band. Per their advice, the band decided to spend the 2019 season planning and engaging other First Nations and writing grants for the future farm school. ISFS will continue to provide any support they require (December 2018 – on-going).

Kent Mullinix kent.mullinix@kpu.ca - Institute for Sustainable Food Systems (ISFS)

Payal Batra payal.batra@kpu.ca - Community Nutrition

Caroline Chiu Caroline.Chiu@kpu.ca - Farm School Development