Reflecting on 2024: Make it Grow’s Impact
Looking back over the past year, Make it Grow celebrates the creation of new meaningful engagements, inspiring stories and tangible impacts. From the exciting grassroots production of community video proposals, the reach of our Training of Trainers programme with organisations across the country, and the hosting of a Symposium, 2024 was a year to remember. Read about the impact we made and our exciting plans for 2025 and beyond…
2024 Highlights
Training of Trainers Programme
Dr Pamela Richardson, a Fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Food, collaborated with Kufunda Village, ORAP, and PORET Trust through the Make it Grow project. Funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) award, the project provided training to 12 local implementing organisations focused on food security and community development.
Staff members received training in facilitation, video-making and project planning, empowering them to deliver participatory video proposal workshops within their communities. As a direct outcome, 14 community groups successfully created video proposals, showcasing their innovative ideas for local food projects, secured start-up funds and have begun implementing their community projects. The resulting projects, which emerged from grounded community visions, are diverse. They range from community aquaculture, to baobab seed processing, through to a culinary heritage & recipe project.
The Kufunda Village Symposium
In late October 2024, participants gathered at Kufunda Village for a symposium facilitated by local youth who were trained and supported by the Make it Grow team. This gathering served as a platform for sharing ideas, presenting participatory video proposals, and fostering connections between organisations and community project representatives.
Key highlights included:
Networking: Participants engaged in activities designed to promote collaboration and the building of relationships for peer support and knowledge exchange.
Video Proposal Screenings: Groups showcased their own community-led initiatives and participated in feedback sessions.World Café
Discussions: Participants shared insights and reflected on issues related to teamwork, creativity, ethics, and the value of participatory video-making in grant applications.
The gathering highlighted the creativity, determination, and collaborative spirit of the community food initiatives and the continual potential of the MiG approach to support local food systems innovation and transformation processes.
What Impact has Make it Grow had in 2024?
In 2024, participants of the Training of the Trainers programme took part in a study. Research highlighted that Make it Grow made a valuable contribution by building digital and community engagement skills & capacities of the trainees. It also confirmed that the approach has broader community impact beyond just the production of video proposals. The trainees described the Make it Grow programme as "transformative" for their organisations and partner communities. By equipping communities with the skills needed to create video proposals, our trainees enabled grassroots groups to share their stories and secure funding. The new community food projects in turn, have led to outcomes such as reduced vulnerability and improved food and nutritional security for the communities involved. The Make it Grow training programme strengthened the capacity of local organisations to support participatory processes within their communities. Marginalised women and youth in rural communities benefited significantly from the workshops, gaining valuable skills and opportunities.
Looking ahead into 2025 and beyond
The Make it Grow project continues to advocate for participatory video proposals as a recognised tool for small grant applications and project reporting, empowering marginalised communities to tell their own stories and drive their own narratives of "development". The impact of the 14 community food projects initiated in 2024 will be closely monitored as they evolve.
Challenges:
Despite significant progress, challenges such as financial limitations and internet connectivity persist for community-based participants. Recommendations from the study included:
Increasing the frequency of in-person workshops, to deepen learning and engagement
Developing offline toolkits to address internet connectivity issues
Strengthening Make it Grow's relationships with donor organisations, to align video proposals with external funding priorities.
Scaling out the Training of Trainers programme, to capacitate more organisations and facilitators to use the Make it Grow approach.
We will focus on this valuable feedback as we move forward.
Continuing the Journey
As we look ahead to 2025, we invite you to follow Make it Grow and support us in leveraging community video-making to build more sustainable, resilient and community-led food systems.
Contact: p.ngwenya@sheffield.ac.uk