In Summer 2023 Bring It On Brum! introduced a potting and planting element to the Hakuna Fruitata project.
Hakuna Fruitata is a project aimed to provide opportunities and experiences for young people alongside their basic fundamental right to explore and enjoy food in a ‘no worries’ and ‘no pressure’ environment. The project equally aims to also empowering Locally Trusted Organisations (LTO’s) to have confidence, knowledge, skills and understanding to stimulate ‘healthy conversations’ around food, nutrition and positive behaviours.
Bring It On Brum! were keen to include activities to reinforce farm to fork, and provide young people with access to potting and planting seeds over the summer holidays where they could plant a variety of seeds, then watch them cultivate and grow. Supported by funding from Food Trails, co-ordinated by Birmingham City Council, Bring It On Brum! were able to provide 70 organisations with pots, seeds and compost, with over 4,500 children benefitting from this experience.
Through Hakuna Fruitata, projects also received a delivery of sugar snap peas, allowing children to see the pea pod in its finished article, pop the peas and learn about where peas really come from – and its not the frozen section of Tesco!
Feedback from providers was incredibly positive, ‘one child was very excited as they have no garden and never planted anything before’, ‘one YP had no idea how to extract the beans from the sleeve – they were curious and bashing the beans all over the place’ and ”it was great to see children understand the food journey and how healthy food is produced’.