Hello all!
Welcome to the first blog post by the Edible College London (ECL) team to mark the launch of our project. Spearheaded by UCL Alumnus Pia Keeley-Johnson and Head of Medical Anthropology Dalia Iskander, ECL is a growing network of UCL's most passionate green-thinking individuals and groups. Funded through a UCL Dean's Strategic Award, we are dedicated to enacting grassroots green change that builds the edible potential of UCL's campus. Our goal is to create an environment that is full of spaces with edible and therapeutic plants, where staff and students can relax, learn, teach and exchange ideas about urban food growing and other sustainable practices.
Our vision is to cohere, fund, visualise, upskill, prototype and embed sustainable growing.
Specifically, we aim to:
Cohere: currently, the various growing, food and sustainability initiatives at UCL are disparate and distinct; we want to bring these powerful ideas and voices together to make UCL students' sustainable growing efforts more cohesive.
Find out more about other UCL Resources and Initiatives.
Fund: we want to fund your ideas for growing the edible potential of our campus. Any UCL staff member or student can apply as an individual or group for up to £250 to fund anything from buying edible or medicinal plants for your work space to attending cooking classes. Deadline 31st May 2022.
Apply for one of our Small Grants.
Visualise: in order to survey the green spaces and initiatives we have so far, our Edible College Map will display data about all ongoing and potential green projects, notably highlighting sites with potential to become havens of herbal and edible resources in the future.
Add to our Edible College Map.
Upskill: we aim to promote fun and practical green infrastructural change at UCL. To grow deep roots, we will be holding a range of FREE skills workshops and green social activities. Everything from workshops in gardening, cooking, preserving and plant therapy to garden(ing) parties, food sharing nights and reading groups.
Join us at one of our Events & Workshops.
Prototype: we want our project and its successes to be easily replicable by other universities and organisations. We will make all of our trials and tribulations, blueprints and resources available so that our resources can be used wherever, whenever and by whomever wants to be part of an edible movement.
Read our Blog to find out more.
Embed: part of our remit is to embed skills in growing and sustainability into the curriculum at UCL. Students across campus have been carrying out their own independent research and activities related to growing.
See our Student Research.
We want to pave the way for a future where UCL's campus provides edible, herbal and therapeutic resources for its community.
Contact us if you would like to join in or want to find out more.
Pia and Dalia!
