The Ruby Garden ,Local Profie By AMK

This action project is for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The purpose of this action project is to find an organization in your neighborhood that helps education wise, food wise, etc. My project was on, The Ruby Garden. The Ruby Garden is a non profit organization that helps people learn how to garden, also its a community garden which allows people to buy garden plots and grow their own produce, tomatoes, onions, and zucchini. What I liked about this action project was that it gave me the opportunity to me to go to a garden that was 5-minutes away, that I never knew about.

AK. The Ruby Garden (2013) GCE portfolios Chicago. 

This is an image of, The Ruby Garden taken on September, 12, 2013. This is where the community of schriber park come to grow their own produce, this image is by, Aminat kolawole.

This target reminds me of what we did on our field experience (FE). During that FE we investigated whether the residents of Englewood could access fresh food and vegetables. We traveled to the Englewood community to visit Growing Home. Growing Home is the only organic farm in Chicago. At the farm, we spoke to Tonika Johnson, the Employment Training Program Assistant. Tonika talked to us about the challenges of finding fresh and healthy produce in Englewood. Tonika supported Englewood on getting a Whole Foods. She believed Englewood would benefit by eating healthier foods instead of the options currently in the neighborhood: liquor stores, fast food, and corner stores.

We learned a new term in Englewood: food desert. A food desert describes a region where residents have limited access to grocery stores and markets.

The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) measure progress against target indicators to know whether organizations are meeting the goals. I chose to investigate a target from MDG 1. That target measures, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. I chose this target because I wanted to find out how people in my city were working to end this problem.

For this organization my classmates and I had to chose a organization that had to do with our target, that is why I chose The Ruby Garden. This garden is a community garden that produces freshly grown vegetables etc.

For this assignment I researched; The Ruby Garden, I looked into Urban Agriculture in Rogers park which led me to The Ruby garden. I found this information by using Accelerate77.com. The Ruby Garden was founded in 2009 in honor of Sarah Garden who passed away in 2008 according to the website “after a ten-year life span”. (Accelerate 77) This garden able's people to buy plots within the community area and allows them to grow their own crops.For this garden accessing vegetation is important because it lets the members grow their own crops which makes them feel accomplished. Also The Ruby Garden offers volunteer work to refugees, teaching them gardening skills. (sources from the Ruby Garden), additionally learngrowconnect.org states, how the kids interact with growing vegetables as well saying;“The kids in the neighborhood used to trash things,” Edward, ( a farmer) says. “Now they’re growing vegetables. (cited from learngrowconnect.org).

The Ruby Garden addresses this target because it helps the community garden grow their own crops and produce. This Garden relates to Maslow's hierarchy of needs because, the people at the center have a sense of security knowing they have somewhere to get fresh crops.

The human need for this community garden is to feel competent in what they are doing, this hierarchy of need is to have the self esteem. All together this organization provides the staff as well as volunteers the opportunity to access what they need at this community garden. This is a physiological need the ability to access food and water.

In order to learn more about this organization I attempted to call this company to find out more about their work and how it impacts them as a community. Unfortunately I was unable to get in touch with them due to miscommunication. I sent The Ruby Garden two emails but had no response. They also did not have any actual contact information.

While looking at other websites that talked about The Ruby Garden I found a quote from this external investigation that read; “During the work day, our refugees were working right alongside neighborhood residents, talking with each other and interacting,” Eichberger says,(a worker). “This truly is a community garden.” This shows that it does not matter where you come from ethnicity wise, we are all humans from different backgrounds, and this quote comes to show that is indeed true.

Another resource I used was The Ruby Garden/Ruby blog.The Ruby blog showed me what they do such as viewing recipes, for tomatoes once they pick them. The Ruby Garden website provided me with facts about the garden such as, when it was founded, and why it was built. I got wonderful information from the website and as well as; learngrowconnect.org

The Ruby Garden effectively addresses this MDG target because, it has multiple people working there meaning they have community members who have plots where they can work on growing their own crops. Also it is a place for kids as well. This will teach the kids how growing plants/veggies work, and how they need vegetables in order to be healthy. This could also be an educated lesson on why you should eat healthy etc. This community garden is right on target helping their community learn to be better people health wise, and in general. 

The Ruby Garden connects with what we are doing in MDGs because, it tells shows us how many people actually grow their own food. In conclusion this MDG target connects to both gardens I have visited; Growing Home and The Ruby garden, this show how many gardens really are located in Chicago and how many people are dedicated to their work.

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Citations:

Accelerate 77. Institute for Cultural Affairs. Web. 11 Sept. 2013.

“Contact Us Page.” therubygarden.com. Web. 11. Sep. 2013.

http://www.learngrowconnect.org/. learngrowconnect.org. Web. 12. Sep. 2013

Water Usage Around The World (H2O Action Project)

My action project is based on the water usage between me and Nigeria, a country in Africa. My class wanted to find out how much water we use compared to a country of our choice. I chose Nigeria, because I I am from Nigeria , and I wanted to know more about the country where my family is from. As you will read in my post, I discovered that Nigeria's water usage is extremely low.  Here is a poster i created for my water class that compares my water usage and Nigeria's.

All posters in this page by: AK (2013) Water Usage Around the World. Chicago: GCE.

My water usage is based on how much water I use daily, (hygiene, cooking, cleaning, bathroom). I am comparing my water usage to Nigeria, a country in West Africa. Our class wants to compare the average amount of water each individual uses each day to the country of our choice (I chose Nigeria). "Humanitarian news.com" shows that in Kano ( a city in Nigeria) 40% of its people have access to clean drinking water. Researchers say that about only 65% of Nigeria gets clean drinking water an average of 15 L (3.9 Gallons) per person per day while in the us. I use about 85 Gallons, I apply the word ‘use’ in capital letters because, we here in the U.S actually have an option to use how much water we desire. Nigeria is a country where the people living there are struggling to access clean drinking water. The president of Nigeria stated that during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), "75 percent of Nigerians would have access to safe drinking water by 2015." I believe, based on this fact, that everyone in Nigeria should have access to clean water.

I believe Nigeria’s government should take action fast because the people are not getting the right amount of water to drink, there isn't enough water pipes for the whole country, that is why people an estimated amount of 1.8 billion people are dying each year each day from lack of water. In my opinion everyone should be able to access clean drinking water no matter where they live. Also, the U.S could take part and help, by giving donations for example and checking on them every month or so, by coming to Nigeria every year and interviewing every day people . We will find out how many people still lack the right amount of water, also if the water is potable. Nigeria’s water usage has decreased over the years, due to lack of sanitation, power or fuel pumping, and broken equipment. In 2006, Nigeria’s water usage decreased from 80% to 65%, but it improved to 74% in 2010. Nigeria continues to suffer due to poor sewage systems. A study shows that about 5% of the households in the Nigeria’s city Lagos are connected to sewage pipes. Nigeria’s call to action is something important because, without fresh water people will lack nutrition and the death toll will start to rise yet again. In conclusion,clean water and access to water is an major issue in Nigeria.

[click on the images to expand them]

Thanks for reading my blog!

REFERENCES
PULITZER (year) Title. Internet: Pulitzer website.
All images by AK (2013) except first one.