Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle del Hudson
Medio ambiente
Social Design Thinking at the Intersection of Land and Food
The Case of the Jail-to-Farm-College-Employment Program
Por María Puente Flores
June 2023 Regenerative design unites the power of nature with human creativity to transcend current limitations and create a just world where everyone can thrive, explains Regenerate Change co-director and founder Abrah Dresdale in her book Regenerative Design for Changemakers. Dresdale recently participated in the COMMON GROUND agriculture talk series, an international festival on land and food politics, the LAB biennial with the Center for Human Rights and the Arts, and Bard College's Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. How can regenerative design theory be put into practice?
Thinking Social Design at the Intersection of Land and Food was the title of the talk by Abraham Dresdale, a social designer, consultant and educator specializing in design thinking for social change. Dresdale is also on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Omega Institute's Center for Sustainable Living. Dresdale exemplified the regenerative design process with the case of a prison food justice program called “Jail-to-Farm-to-College and Employment”. and employment”. Abrah designed and led that program at the Franklin County Jail in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Sitting on 37 acres of unforested land that slopes down to the green river, the Franklin County Jail is a medium security county facility with 250 incarcerated citizens. In fact, there used to be a working farm there 27 years ago in which the incarcerated people grew their vegetables and milked their cows; the majority of the meals they consumed came from their farmwork. “How quickly the industrial food system and mass produced food sold at the lowest bid, is going into the stomachs of those who are the most vulnerable in our society” remarks Abrah. That is why she explains that so much of the Jail-to-Farm-to-College project focuses on food apartheid. Most of the incarcerated people are there for drug use and homelessness. Even though the jail has a punitive paradigm, it is sold as a ‘recovery paradigm,’ says Abrah. Surprisingly, the Franklin County Jail is one of the most liberal and progressive places when compared with other jails in the county.
The aim of the Jail-to-Farm-to-College program is to achieve sovereignty and dignity for those incarcerated. Farming apprenticeship, gardens, and college courses are the vehicles through which these states are accomplished.
The goals of the project were derived from interviews with incarcerated citizens, forums with the broader community and key members of the administrative staff. That is, the people designing the project were directly concerned with hearing from the people whom the project intended to benefit, and with voicing those necessities to the people with power and turning them into allies. Abrah remarks that when social justice projects are not done in a collective gathering manner “there can be an unconscious pattern of white saviorism which reproduces colonial dynamics” and could end up being a waste of resources. She expresses her own personal experience of having to check her mentality when going into the jails: “we’re all in the soup of missionary settler colonialism overculture; and there are difficulties of unlearning the attitudes we’ve internalized for centuries.” That is why Abrah stops to reflect and integrate observations even along the process of implementing the projects.
Collective creation
The Jail-to-Farm-to-College program helps to channel the state funding – through the education department – into these transformative experiences for those incarcerated; this can be considered as a form of reparation. The specific goals are: nutrition, access to fresh local produce, expanding therapeutic opportunities with horticulture, offering vocational skill training and academic preparation from the local community college, access to regular exercise, creating a supportive network of mentors and practitioners to reduce recidivism rates, and, lastly, providing employment opportunities in the regional food economy. In other words, the question that the project answers is: how does it look when we create social change within ‘the belly of the beast’ by widening the access of some of its resources?
Incarcerated people were taking credit-bearing college classes that granted them with the ability to articulate their struggles and necessities. So Abrah mentions: “What gives me hope? … Changemakers who are incarcerated with some of the smallest amount of sovereignty and resources, advocating for local food, for sustainability, for their well being, to the person who has the highest power in the system – the local sheriff sitting in that very room. And because of these presentations numerous structure changes have occurred at this facility.”
“The last thing I want to uplift is a new project that was just released in 2021” concludes Abrah; “the Regenerate Change was hired to design a 48 hour climate justice curriculum to be taught in jail and prisons. It is being piloted in Franklin County Jail too. It takes into consideration whole systems and intersectional thinking [...] It’s all thought through a racial justice and decolonization lens and incorporates art, ritual, and futurism writing.”
So the Jail-to-Farm-to-College project in Franklin County Jail is a case study that shows us how the social design process can help us use our tools and resources to start doing projects that create local changes that advance us toward a better future.
Abrah also spoke of a new project that just launched in 2021, “48 hour climate justice curriculum to be taught in jail and prisons. It is being piloted in Franklin County Jail too. It takes into consideration whole systems and intersectional thinking [...] It’s all thought through a racial justice and decolonization lens and incorporates art, ritual, and futurism writing.”
So the Jail-to-Farm-to-College project in Franklin County Jail is a case study that shows us how the social design process can help us use our tools and resources to start doing projects that create local changes that advance us toward a better future.
Bard College also has the Bard Prison Initiative project enrolls over 300 incarcerated students full-time in programs that culminate in degrees from Bard College. bpi.bard.edu
COPYRIGHT 2023
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
Sitting on 37 acres of unforested land that slopes down to the green river, the Franklin County Jail is a medium security county facility with 250 incarcerated citizens. In fact, there used to be a working farm there 27 years ago in which the incarcerated people grew their vegetables and milked their cows; the majority of the meals they consumed came from their farmwork. “How quickly the industrial food system and mass produced food sold at the lowest bid, is going into the stomachs of those who are the most vulnerable in our society” remarks Abrah. That is why she explains that so much of the Jail-to-Farm-to-College project focuses on food apartheid. Most of the incarcerated people are there for drug use and homelessness. Even though the jail has a punitive paradigm, it is sold as a ‘recovery paradigm,’ says Abrah. Surprisingly, the Franklin County Jail is one of the most liberal and progressive places when compared with other jails in the county.
The aim of the Jail-to-Farm-to-College program is to achieve sovereignty and dignity for those incarcerated. Farming apprenticeship, gardens, and college courses are the vehicles through which these states are accomplished.
The goals of the project were derived from interviews with incarcerated citizens, forums with the broader community and key members of the administrative staff. That is, the people designing the project were directly concerned with hearing from the people whom the project intended to benefit, and with voicing those necessities to the people with power and turning them into allies. Abrah remarks that when social justice projects are not done in a collective gathering manner “there can be an unconscious pattern of white saviorism which reproduces colonial dynamics” and could end up being a waste of resources. She expresses her own personal experience of having to check her mentality when going into the jails: “we’re all in the soup of missionary settler colonialism overculture; and there are difficulties of unlearning the attitudes we’ve internalized for centuries.” That is why Abrah stops to reflect and integrate observations even along the process of implementing the projects.
Collective creation
The Jail-to-Farm-to-College program helps to channel the state funding – through the education department – into these transformative experiences for those incarcerated; this can be considered as a form of reparation. The specific goals are: nutrition, access to fresh local produce, expanding therapeutic opportunities with horticulture, offering vocational skill training and academic preparation from the local community college, access to regular exercise, creating a supportive network of mentors and practitioners to reduce recidivism rates, and, lastly, providing employment opportunities in the regional food economy. In other words, the question that the project answers is: how does it look when we create social change within ‘the belly of the beast’ by widening the access of some of its resources?
Incarcerated people were taking credit-bearing college classes that granted them with the ability to articulate their struggles and necessities. So Abrah mentions: “What gives me hope? … Changemakers who are incarcerated with some of the smallest amount of sovereignty and resources, advocating for local food, for sustainability, for their well being, to the person who has the highest power in the system – the local sheriff sitting in that very room. And because of these presentations numerous structure changes have occurred at this facility.”
“The last thing I want to uplift is a new project that was just released in 2021” concludes Abrah; “the Regenerate Change was hired to design a 48 hour climate justice curriculum to be taught in jail and prisons. It is being piloted in Franklin County Jail too. It takes into consideration whole systems and intersectional thinking [...] It’s all thought through a racial justice and decolonization lens and incorporates art, ritual, and futurism writing.”
So the Jail-to-Farm-to-College project in Franklin County Jail is a case study that shows us how the social design process can help us use our tools and resources to start doing projects that create local changes that advance us toward a better future.
Abrah also spoke of a new project that just launched in 2021, “48 hour climate justice curriculum to be taught in jail and prisons. It is being piloted in Franklin County Jail too. It takes into consideration whole systems and intersectional thinking [...] It’s all thought through a racial justice and decolonization lens and incorporates art, ritual, and futurism writing.”
So the Jail-to-Farm-to-College project in Franklin County Jail is a case study that shows us how the social design process can help us use our tools and resources to start doing projects that create local changes that advance us toward a better future.
Bard College also has the Bard Prison Initiative project enrolls over 300 incarcerated students full-time in programs that culminate in degrees from Bard College. bpi.bard.edu
COPYRIGHT 2023
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
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