Since July 2018, ISFS has been having ongoing conversations with Peter Vlahos, the Director of the TWN Health Department. The Nation is interested in exploring the potential of having an urban farm in the community to achieve their food security goals. The vision is to have this urban farm also incorporate a training program, be a gathering space and to provide fresh vegetables for the community’s members and meal programs. TWN received funding to put on an urban farm forum where community members will attend along with several other North Shore external stakeholders. ISFS staff Payal Batra and Caroline Chiu organized this forum, invited guest speakers and are to facilitate it as well. This forum was set to happen on February 16th, 2019; however, due to dangerous weather conditions, the forum was postponed until March 29th, 2019. ISFS received news last week that TWN has decided to cancel this forum until further notice due to a change in their internal organization.

Despite the urban farm forum being cancelled, ISFS strives to continue this working relationship with TWN. As smaller projects, ISFS has worked with them in writing grants for a beekeeping course and a traditional medicine workshop. TWN has also signed on the Research Agreement to be a part of the CIHR funded community health research project elaborated under the section on Sto:Lo Nation.  On March 25, Kent Mullinix, Payal Batra and Caroline Chiu will be meeting with Peter and several key TWN representatives to talk about future collaborations (July 2018 – on-going).

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

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

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