Stepping Into Life

Glasgow’s east end is where I met brilliant people dedicated to growing not just food, but connections with each other, the land and nature but also “the more beautiful world our heart knows is possible”.

One of my highlights whilst working as maternity cover Community Activator at GCFN includes the Wash House Garden’s community meal in August last year. Part of its making involved the participants to harvest, process and cook some of the garden’s produce with community chef Lindsey McGhie. Neighbours enjoyed meeting one another, setting the table with such care and beauty so that eating became slow, a sacred act of togetherness, nourishment and celebration punctuated with chatter and joy. There I witnessed the power of food to transform’s people’s moods and level of happiness.

Another was collaborating with Nourish Scotland and City of Glasgow College to present a special public diner experience with food - made and served by catering and hospitality students - film and conversation. Again, I saw first hand the power of food to connect people, give City of Glasgow College students an opportunity to ground their culinary and hospitality skills within Nourish Scotland’s wider campaigning work about food, health, dignity and justice in Scotland. The food was delicious. One of the attendees, a retired butcher remarked on how the beef was good quality. Vegans and vegetarians were treated to a nourishing bean dish as part of GCFN’s Full of Beans Campaign highlighting beans as a desirable climate and food action that is cost effective and filling, yum!

I thoroughly enjoyed curating another collaboration with Take One Action Film Festivals as part of our winter Food & Climate Film Club series. Themes highlighted were local growing, community action, care, collaboration and how growing food creates healthy, connected communities and people. Attendees enjoyed a delicious vegan gluten free bean meal made by Herina Achieng, community chef trained at the Central & West Integration Network (CWIN) as part of the community chef training programme run by GCFN's Food and Climate Action Community Activator, Jenny MacGillivray. I loved that the event wove in so many layers of food and climate action in a simple, powerful, local and tasty way.

I would say my top highlight was the event I organised at Glasgow Women’s Library “From Allotment to Entrepreneurship: celebrating women, food and business” with guests speaker Latoya Francis this February. I can’t tell you enough how inspired I was by Latoya. Latoya is an exceptional individual: she is an East end of Glasgow entrepreneur, mother, campaigner of organic homegrown food, maker of natural skin care products and wholesome meals from produce grown in her allotment. Latoya shared knowledge about natural remedies, her own life journey and challenges, and how nature and good organic food supported her recovery from cancer but also her daughter’s eczema. I can say that all of us in the audience, which included young children, teenagers, adults of varying ages were well and truly blown away! I strongly recommend Latoya as a a speaker, she will inspire you! We had the opportunity to some of Latoya’s skin and hair products all made with natural and organic ingredients.

My role at GCFN ended recently in February. My next steps are to develop my holistic wellbeing services for women. Check out my website Stepping into Life. I offer nutrition, somatic movement, reiki, grief support and emotional wellness and literacy. I am really keen to work with organisations and individuals on a long term basis.

This is year, I am trying something new: nutritional mentoring, in particular with Black women experiencing the menopause. I am passionate about inviting all women to be the authority in regards to their nutrition with my support and role as consultant. In this way, I am shifting the focus away from compliance (did you follow what I told you / the rules) to competence (how well do you understand your body’s signals). It’s about supporting you with healthier nourishing food choices, building food literacy and body awareness. I’m excited about this and the possibility of self discovery, reframing “failure”, encouraging curiosity over judgement and understanding the process of health building through lifestyle choices that stick, wholefoods throughout the day with the least amount of friction and the most amount of joy and taste!