Immersive Afro-Caribbean Farming Program

Manón Voice and Shamira Wilson have a wonderful opportunity to participate in a Farming + Sustainability Program – a unique, immersive learning experience that provides hands-on opportunities to engage with community, culture, land stewardship, and ecology from an Afro-Caribbean-centered perspective with experienced program guides. This five-day immersive experience will explore topics such as urban farming, regenerative agriculture, issues of food apartheid, environmental racism, climate crisis, solutions to current food shortages, and more.

Some of the benefits that we hope to glean from this immersive experience are as follows:

• Creative and culturally relevant ways to share the joys of food, nutrition, and farming with Black, Latin, and Caribbean community members, especially those who may be impacted by food access.

• Experience the diversity of foods and recipes that are relevant to the communities that we support, and also supportive of biodiverse gut microbes which impact all of the body's health systems.

• Solutions from learning in warmer climates with similarities and differences in weather and landscape features that could foster sustainability.

• Tools of social change in addressing issues of food justice, food sovereignty, and food access within our Indianapolis community. 

• Connect the Indianapolis network of farmers to an international community.

Agriculture is deeply embedded in the cultural heritage of Black communities across Latin America and the Caribbean. Many traditional farming practices and crop varieties are passed down through generations, embodying centuries of knowledge and restorative connections to the land. Black-led farming programs ensure the preservation and continuation of these traditions, which might otherwise be lost to globalization and industrial farming.

Black-led farming initiatives provide an avenue for economic empowerment by enabling Black communities to gain ownership and control over agricultural resources through programs like these, that educate and empower community members, fostering a sense of agency and advocacy that transcends the immediate agricultural context. Black-led farming initiatives often grow beyond agriculture into platforms for advocacy and social change. They become spaces where communities can organize and mobilize against systemic racial and economic injustices.

We are asking for support in the form of monetary donations to support our participation in the immersive program. The total cost for us to participate in this trip is $5,000, including lodging, on-ground transportation, meals, program tuition, translation services, and travel from the U.S. to the Caribbean (plus donation transaction fees). In appreciation for your support, following our return, we plan to host a gathering to share about this unique immersive experience, and how we plan to activate what we learned. We know that community is essential in doing impactful work around food justice, food access, and food sovereignty, but the community is also essential to the work of mind and body healing, belonging, and reclamation, all of which we hope to integrate into our present and future work around food, farming, and wellness. 

Thank you for your support! 

Manón Voice | manonvoice.com

Shamira Wilson | shamirawilson.com