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Gardening with Refugees and Immigrants

BNAN has begun an exciting new partnership with the Gardening through Refugee Organizations (GRO) group, a network of Mutual Assistance Association Coalitions (MAA) to connect refugee and immigrant populations with urban gardening and their new neighbors and to provide a traditional setting for the family elders to reconnect with their youth and continue their agrarian knowledge. The MAA Coalitions work to strengthen the collective voice of refugees and immigrants in Massachusetts and promote their adjustment, acculturation and integration into society.

Participating MAAs have included the Bosnian Community Center for Resource Development (BCCRD), Congolese Development Center (CDC), Eritrean Community Center (ECC), Ethiopian Community Mutual Assistance Association (ECMAA), Haitian American Public Health Initiatives (HAPHI), Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Center (RIAC), Russian Community Association of Massachusetts (RCAM), Somali Development Center (SDC), Southern Sudanese Solidarity Organization (SSSO), Sudanese American Integration & Development Center (SAIDC), Vietnamese American Civic Association (VACA). The project is in its second year in 2010.

This year, BNAN is leading community and backyard gardening workshops for select MAAs at City Natives and will provide gardening resources to these new Bostonian families. BNAN staff is also working to place the participants into vacant plots at existing community gardens in their neighborhoods as well to establish new temporary gardens for them. We are working with the Department of Neighborhood Development to identify parcels of vacant city land as well as the Parks and Recreation Department to build these gardens.

The GRO project has been an important step for BNAN in its efforts to reach out to new communities interested in urban gardening. If you have a vacant plot in your community garden that can be made available for these families or can contribute gardening tools for the workshop participants, please email Vidya Tikku at vidya@bostonnatural.org.