This project is designed to empower the women of by giving them the option of working from home and supporting their families. We also hope to create new connections between the communities of the area through food and gardening.
The Bedouin women are currently growing Baladi vegetables. Baladi are food produced naturally, without pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers sold The goal of this project is to empower Bedouin women by creating jobs, workable from home, as well as to support the health of the community, both people and land. Diets, which have become dominated by manufactured foodstuffs, will be improved with locally grown foods. The project will also serve to maintain and improve the natural environment through the practice of organic food growing methods.
Produce will be grown in individual home gardens and co-opperative gardens, and dropped off at a central locations. Products will strive towards heirloom and traditional foods not commonly found in the marketplace. Product selection is twofold, to find/create a niche market in which to distribute goods, and also to preserve traditional crops adapted to the environment/region, and hence, Bedouin culture.
Additionally effort will be placed on seed saving techniques in order to preserve seeds for future use in a sustainable manner, and hopefully, to increase the development of local varieties (landraces). Both seed saving techniques and the importance of seed heritage will be topics of education for growers.
Volunteers can:
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Creating the information sheet and translating into the above-mentioned three languages.
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Distributing the information sheet to community centers (university, colleges, synagogues, health food stores) and to the Bustan email list.
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maintain email contact regularly (daily) to answer questions and compile email list and sending out emails to the list on a weekly basis, updating the status of the market and the produce.
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When the harvest begins to come in:
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Estimate the harvest for the week (What is available? How much? How many people can it feed?)
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Create a primary list from which people can make orders easily
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Send out an email two days before market day informing the produce available for the week, and asking customers to place orders in advance
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Check the email at least twice a day leading up to market day to respond to orders and inquiries (if there is not enough produce tell them, if there is enough produce remind them of the pick-up times)
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Ensure that the orders will be ready the day of market (harvest and divide according to the orders placed)
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Market day! (All orders should be ready and other produce should be available)
