A day to remember! The Make it Grow Symposium, October 2024
By Sarah Wilson and Pamela Richardson
During 2024, Dr Pamela Richardson - a Fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Food - collaborated with three partner organisations in Zimbabwe (Kufunda Village, ORAP and PORET Trust) through her ongoing project, Make it Grow. Funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) award, the Make it Grow project provided training for 12 local implementing organisations or non-profit organisations already working in the area of food security and community development. This 'Training of Trainers' Programme involved training in facilitation, video-making and project planning skills. Twenty staff members were trained and supported to facilitate their own workshops, on the ground, with their community group partners. As a result, video proposals were made by 14 community groups.
On 29 October, a Symposium took place in Kufunda Village (Ruwa, Zimbabwe), bringing together participants from the collaborating organisations and partner communities for a full day of in-person activities. The Symposium was facilitated by a team of local youth (supported/ trained by the Make it Grow team) and provided an opportunity for participants to network and collectively reflect on their learning from the workshops. The groups presented their own community video proposals, showcasing a diverse range of innovative ideas for promoting change in their local food systems.
Throughout this year, recurrent climate-induced shocks have caused devastating impacts in Zimbabwe. Crop failures, livestock deaths and water shortages have negatively affected livelihoods, especially in rural regions. According to the World Food Programme, approximately 6 million people in Zimbabwe are expected to be food insecure at the start of 2025. This means that almost 1/3 of the population will lack access to a sufficient amount of affordable and nutritious food. For this reason, community-led interventions are particularly important and play a vital role in improving food security. Make it Grow works to support sustainable food start-ups by strengthening digital capacity, local innovation, access to knowledge networks and funding.
The day began with a lively check-in activity where participants introduced themselves and discussed their passions and interests. This icebreaker enabled people from different communities to develop relationships and learn more about each other. After this, Pamela (University of Sheffield, Video-Co-Lab) gave a presentation about the background of the Make it Grow project. She shared the project aims and highlighted some of the successes and challenges to date.
Next, it was time for screening the community video proposals. Representatives from each group presented their video pitches and took part in a Q&A. Audience members shared feedback and drew from their own experiences to make helpful recommendations. The video proposals covered a wide range of locally-led food initiatives, including the following:
In the afternoon, participants were encouraged to share key learnings from the Make it Grow training workshops in a World Café-style group activity. Among other things, they discussed the pros and cons of using participatory video in the context of community grant-making. The task challenged everyone to speak openly, contribute insights, connect ideas, listen for patterns and use creative methods (e.g. doodling and drawing). Participants had lively discussions and shared interesting reflections on: teamwork, confidence, determination, networking, creativity, ethics, planning and constructive criticism. This part of the event was really meaningful, as it reinforced learning for the participants and enabled the facilitators to understand what the community groups valued most.
At the end of the day, there was a check-out activity. Participants talked about ideas for next steps and described how the video proposal-making process made them feel. Participants suggested some ideas for scaling participatory video in grant making processes:
"Collaborate in fundraising"
"Improve quality of information provided and videos produced"
"Identify skill sets among us and encourage cross-pollination of ideas"
"Invite donors to events, such as this, to spread awareness of the concept of video proposals"
Make it Grow advocates for participatory video proposals to become more widely accepted by donors and charitable organisations, so that community groups can apply for funding in this way. Through video-making and community capacity-building, marginalised communities can raise their voices and pitch their own ideas. As well as empowering individuals to tell their own stories in their own words, participatory video supports bottom-up community development. The Make it Grow team will now be tracking the progress and impact of the 14 community food projects that have developed in this way, as a result of their training and outreach activities in 2024.
With thanks to our project partners Kufunda, ORAP and PORET Trust. Thank you also to the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) fund, UK Research and Innovation, the Marie Curie Fellowship, Institute for Sustainable Food (University of Sheffield) and Institute for Global Sustainable Development (University of Sheffield). This event would not have been possible without your support.
Contact: p.ngwenya@sheffield.ac.uk