green collar jobs
Good stewardship of our Environment and Green Collar Jobs are two key areas of focus for our future and the time is now to implement education and training in these arenas. The Urban Farming™ Environmental Justice and Green Collar Jobs Program features workshops and training on the subjects of Environmental Justice and Green Collar Jobs. The objective of this program is to train the next generation of leaders and technicians in the Green Collar Jobs fields and help provide job opportunities for the communities we serve. The shift to alternative energy in our future will require immediate knowledge and training of people in Green Collar careers. The Urban Farming™ Community Gardens provide an excellent catalyst for reaching out to the community to spread the word about this forthcoming arena of career opportunities. The gardens are training grounds for urban agricultural jobs and the program will offer a wide array of opportunities with an emphasis on environmental justice and good stewardship of our planet's resources.
Urban Farming™ facilitates education and job training which creates employment opportunities where jobs are scarce. Individuals who have previously experienced difficulty finding jobs will gain crucial training and experience that can prepare them for the life sustaining careers of the future of the new green economy. Coordinated partnerships with entrepreneurial non-profits and for-profit companies also contribute to the development of a green economy and revitalize environments in the heart of the most distressed urban and metropolitan areas. Urban Farming™ works with Green Living Technologies which specializes in green roofs and walls. These growing systems significantly increase the quality of the food Urban Farming™ is able to produce as well as flexibility in selecting planting locations.
In 2008, Urban Farming™ worked with Green Living Technologies to put four Edible Walls in Downtown Los Angeles. The walls were sponsored by The Annenberg Foundation, Warner Brothers Pictures and the Los Angeles Beautification Department and were the first Edible Walls in the Urban Farming Global Food Chain Project™. The walls not only help feed the community but cut down on the urban heat index, rainwater runoff and also cut down on the heating and cooling costs of the host buildings the walls are adhered to. The project lead to another project in 2009 with Urban Farming™, Green Living Technologies and Campbell's Soup, which featured an Urban Farming™ Edible Wall at the Brotherhood / SisterSol After school facility in Harlem.
Urban Farming™ also works with the Returning Citizens Therapeutic Gardens Initiative in partnership with Wayne County Children and Family Services and Dickerson Jail. The pilot program is highly successful and has engaged over two hundred and ten returning citizens who were able to fulfill community service commitments at the Urban Farming™ Community Gardens as well as take food home to their own families. The initiative inspired the community, providers and participants and led them to the expand the program in 2008. The most significant positive response to this program came from the participating men who were re-introduced to the community after serving time for non-violent offenses. Community members recognized that these men had tended all season to the very garden that produced over 7 tons of food for the neighborhood, as well as the rehabilitation providers, Dickerson Jail and Wayne County Children and Family Services Executives. As a result of the successful pilot program, Wayne County Children and Family Services along with Sheriff Evans office, Dickerson Jail, the participating Rehabilitation Providers and Urban Farming™ began plans to incorporate garden sites directly at the Providers sites while continuing the expansion of the Urban Farming™ Community Garden Therapeutic Program. The Returning Citizens Therapeutic Gardens Program will integrate with the Environmental Justice and Green Collar Jobs Program™ to provide opportunities to the returning citizens in Green Careers. |
|
In the spirit of the First Guiding Principle of Urban Farming™, which is Win-Win Relationships, we encourage you to visit the websites of some of the non-profit organizations we work with, as well as other non-profit organizations we think are cool and worthy of checking out! They are all doing something positive for our world, so please take a moment to check out as many of these links as possible!
We would like to thank all of the folks that are listed below for the wonderful work they are doing to make our world a better place!
Digging Deeper SF
Environmental Justice:
Common Vision
Harvest Rhythm
Sailing the plastic sea, by David Knowles
Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF)
Izabella Miko
EkoMiko
Youth and Adult:
YoungBiz
YoungBiz -Detroit |
