Sun, Jul 05, 2009
 Mukhtar Omar, 17, reaches for a pomegranate while out with the Iskashitaa Refugee Harvesting Network. Originally from Somalia, he came to Tucson in 2005.
photos by mamta popat / Arizona Daily Star
More Photos (3):
  
Tucson Urban League CEO/President Construction West-Press Printing Administrative & Professional Jorgensen Brooks Group Counselor Finance and Accounting Charles E. Gillman Company Accounting Specialist Mechanical Komatsu Equipment Co Resident Field Mechanic Health Care Dependable Health Services Physical Therapists Health Care CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT at HomeGroup maps Tucson's fruitSomalis help harvest goods for needy at homes, farms
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.19.2006
By Gillian Drummond
Special to the Arizona Daily Star
For Barbara Eiswerth, the urge to re-use and recycle began at an early age.
At her parents' house in Pennsylvania, one of her childhood chores was to gather apples.
She'd also collect empty milk bottles and take them to the cider press, where the bottles would be filled with apple cider.
When Eiswerth moved to Arizona 14 years ago, she was amazed at how much citrus fruit was going to waste. So she started collecting citrus in her neighborhood in Tucson and redistributing it, particularly to elderly neighbors.
Eiswerth is an environmental scientist by training, specializing in geospatial information technology. During a stint working in Malawi, she helped identify food resources through geographical mapping — in turn helping locals who were suffering repeated hunger periods.
Back in Tucson again, Eiswerth set about doing the same thing, establishing a program that not only feeds people and redistributes excess fruit and vegetables but educates, too.
Iskashitaa Refugee Harvesting Network was set up in 2003 to help the 800 to 1,000 Somali Bantu refugees now living in Tucson. After the 1991 collapse of the Somali government, they were displaced from southern Somalia to refugee camps in Kenya before coming to the United States.
The network began with just a handful of volunteers and an afterschool program, which has since grown to around 70 helpers.
They began to systematically map Tucson neighborhoods, with volunteers walking around and identifying fruit trees by sight, over garden walls or from alleyways. That information was then entered onto a computer, and an aerial map was created.
Homeowners were then contacted through neighborhood fliers. They can either harvest their own fruit and vegetables and donate to the network, or Eiswerth's volunteers will harvest it for them.
Through harvesting, cooking and helping publicize the effort at the likes of farmers' markets, the refugees are learning life and language skills, says Eiswerth.
"Everything about our culture is very foreign to them, from indoor living to formal education. (I thought) they could feel good about doing something, and they don't need to know a bunch of English to harvest lemons."
Mukhtar Omar, a 17-year-old refugee who arrived in Tucson in 2005, says he delivers the network's own fair-trade coffee, as well as harvesting fruit: "My English is good from working with Barbara. She's helping me communicate with other people, and (teaching me) how to use the computer," he says.
It's an education for Eiswerth and her volunteers, too. They learned quickly what vegetables the refugees wouldn't touch (radishes are a no-no, beets tend to be used by them as lipstick). But they've adopted new foods into their diets, like pomegranates and plums.
Eiswerth isn't fluent in their languages, but "I speak food," she says. "Ask me the words for any of the fruits and vegetables, and I'll tell you."
The group, which has been ticking along on city of Tucson grants and private funding (Eiswerth works full-time for no pay), has just applied for charitable status.
Currently, the network has mapped four central neighborhoods in Tucson, but Eiswerth hopes to expand. With Tucson's busy citrus season approaching, she's looking for more homeowners to work with and talking to landscaping companies and real estate agents to try to get them to spread the word to their clients.
The network now harvests an estimated 20,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables a year, from private residences and farms. Although it can sell some of its overflow fruit and vegetables, because the organization still lacks commercial kitchen space, it can't sell value-added items like marmalade.
News of Eiswerth's efforts is spreading nationwide. "I've had people contact me asking, 'Do you have one in Boston?' " she says.
For now, her efforts are focused here in Tucson, where she continues to be astounded at both the food waste and the pockets of poverty.
"This is my village, and it's happening here," she says. "It's just sickening."
● Contact freelance reporter Gillian Drummond at GCDrummond@aol.com.
|
|
0 Comments on this story