Grassroots Remedies for Detoxing and Healing Contaminated Land

In many cities, vacant lots are being converted into urban farms, community gardens, and gathering spaces. This is joyous news! And, it begs the question: how can we work with the power of living systems to heal and transform contaminated and damaged land into nourishing and fertile places once more?This workshop will explore some of the DIY ways we can work with the many micro-organisms, mushrooms, and plants that are the planets finest and oldest disaster responders, alchemists, and healers.This introductory workshop covers the basics of different community accessible bioremediation techniques, including:

• Microbial remediation: Using microorganisms to break down and bind contaminants
• Phytoremediation: Using plants to extract, bind, and transform toxins
• Mycoremediation: Using fungi to clean up contaminated soil and water.

• Presenters: Leila Darwish and Danielle Stevenson (see bios below)
• August 14, from 5:30-8pm at Santropol Roulant, 111 Roy East
• Cost: sliding scale from $10-20
• Places are limited, please sign up by emailing Noémie or calling 514-284-9335

Welcome to the wild world of grassroots bioremediation and community driven earth repair!

Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/417506071695885/

About the presenters:
Danielle Stevenson has a passion for education and action around food, justice, health and earth repair. She has worked on farms and urban agriculture projects for about 8 years, including numerous school and community growing projects. Danielle has a degree in Environmental Studies and History, a Permaculture Design Certificate, and a passion for theatre and music. Most recently she has been working around food access and poverty through community kitchens and free meal programs with 8 community centers in Victoria. After inheriting home-scale mushroom cultivation equipment this year, she’s been studying and experimenting with growing mushrooms and working with them to heal the land.

Leila Darwish is a community organizer, permaculture practioner, writer, and urban gardener with a deep commitment to environmental justice, food sovereignty, and to providing accessible and transformative tools for communities dealing with toxic contamination of their land and drinking water. Over the last decade, she has worked as a community organizer for different environmental organizations and community groups in Alberta, BC and the USA on different environmental justice campaigns. She is a certified permaculture designer, a graduate of the Linnaea Ecological Farming program, and she has given workshops on grassroots bioremediation and earth repair for a diversity of groups and organizations in Canada and the USA. She is the author of the new book “Earth Repair: A Grassroots Guide to Healing Toxic and Damaged Landscapes”, which was recently released by New Society Publishers. For more information, check out earthrepair.ca