Taking Health into Our Own Hands: A Forum on Community-Grown Solutions
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
6:30-9 pm
CUNY Graduate Center, New York City
A free evening discussion

WHY presents an evening discussion on community-based solutions to diet and food-related health crises.  Keynote speaker Rebecca Sparks, of the Department of Nutrition at New York University, will address the health challenges in low-income communities.  A diverse panel of grassroots leaders from across New York City will share experiences from growing food in the city to drawing on cultural food traditions as ways of mobilizing their communities around healthy food.  Lynn Fredericks, founder of FamilyCook productions, will moderate the discussion.  Longtime community gardening activist Karen Washington will recommend next steps and charge participants to get involved in their own communities.

Confirmed panelists include:

East New York Farms! Youth Intern -  East New York Farms! is a collaborative project organizing community youth and adult residents to address food issues by promoting local and regional sustainable agriculture and community-based economic development. The East New York Farms program is dependent on the 20 youth interns who work at the program each year. 

Abu Talib is one of the head gardeners and founders of Taqwa Community Farm in the South Bronx. Founded in 1991 from a trash-filled vacant lot, the farm now has a membership of over 100 families, youth mentoring internships, herbal medicine workshops and a “Grow and Give” program that feeds the neighborhood’s needy

Robert Jackson is the co-executive director of the Brooklyn Rescue Mission, a food pantry, urban farm, and youth gardening program in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.  

Flor de Maria Eilets heads the Community Life Program for the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service in east Harlem.  She works with immigrant women, primarily recent immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, to grow, sell, and prepare fresh produce, and to combat diabetes by promoting healthy eating based on traditional foods.

Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Time: 6:30-9 pm, registration begins at 6 pm
Location: CUNY Graduate Center
Proshansky Auditorium
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY
For more information, call 212-629-3224.9-97