Project Description:
"Urban growing spaces are rooted in decades of community resistance against disinvestment and structural oppression. Faced with growing racial and economic inequality, urban farms and gardens advocate for an equitable food system as a means of promoting community health. But for the food sovereignty movement to succeed, it must be inclusive to everyone regardless of their accessibility needs.
Currently, there is a lack of resources addressing accessibility of urban growing spaces for people experiencing the full spectrum of disability, particularly for those with cognitive, sensory, and psychiatric disabilities. The few existing resources have a limited scope, focusing on physical accessibility for people with mobility impairments. This project brings together self-advocates, leaders of urban growing spaces, Liberty Resources Inc., and the Institute on Disabilities to assess and improve accessibility of urban farms and gardens, to develop educational resources and training materials about universal design principles for urban growing spaces to integrate across Pennsylvania, and to foster inter-movement partnerships with disability justice and food sovereignty movement.
We will create and disseminate a digital survey to assess current knowledge of universal design principles at urban gardens and farms across Pennsylvania. We will then convene a bimonthly workgroup of urban growers and self-advocate growers. We will leverage community expertise in disability justice and food justice to create and disseminate a universal design toolkit and training for urban gardens and farms. We will address accessibility holistically, focusing on physical, communication, sensory, attitudinal, and programmatic access. We will be an iterative, collaborative, and community led process to resource development and evaluation.
We will then create a microgrant opportunity for Pennsylvania urban growing spaces to improve accessibility by utilizing our collaborative toolkit and purchasing adaptive technologies and recommended renovations to improve accessibility, working collaboratively with our workgroup as needed. We will evaluate the effectiveness of these changes during the growing season, update the toolkit throughout the process, and host supplemental workshops. The goal is to create a self-sufficient model that can be used to improve accessibility of urban gardening spaces across Pennsylvania. "
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Limited English, Geographic Areas, Urban
