Sustainable Agriculture Internship

Did you know that nearly a billion people worldwide regularly experience hunger and lack sufficient access to nutritious food? On top of this challenge, our drive to expand food production using conventional methods has degraded soil quality and caused a rapid depletion of freshwater resources worldwide, threatening our capacity to continue producing food in the future or meet the demands of a growing population. Fortunately, emerging strategies have developed methods for not only improving food cultivation, but also for restoring soil quality and recharging local fresh water resources at the same time.
 
My name is Connor Harron and I am an educator, a researcher, and an activist with a passion for inspiring and empowering the next generation of small landholder farmers and change makers throughout the globe. Through my experiences I have been able to work and live with students from a diverse array of backgrounds, cultures, and languages. I have been fortunate enough to watch many of them grow and mature, and support them in accomplishing their evolving goals. These experiences have given me a deep appreciation for the potential of education to transform lives and help promote healthy and sustainable development in communities around the world. Community and School Gardens can provide particularly powerful educational experiences. Over the past several years I have helped develop and support educational garden programs both as a student and as an educator. Although the challenges facing learners are complex and oftentimes unique to particular communities or individuals, garden education can create vital opportunities to engage with youth through focused hands on activities that provide invaluable training, promote responsibility and entrepreneurship that can help break cycles of poverty and redefine student’s personal expectations.

In pursuit of furthering my training and expertise in sustainable agriculture practices, I have decided to take a one-year leave of absence from my PhD program at UC-Irvine in order to train at Rancho Mastatal (http://ranchomastatal.com/), a world-renowned sustainability education center in Costa Rica, where I was recently offered a position to participate in a competitive internship program. Although I have practiced sustainable agriculture for years, there is much still to learn. This immersive training experience will provide me with the skills to help advance my work at the Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation, and better support the garden education programs I work with in Southern California, Mexico, Swaziland, and Uganda.

In order to gain these skills, I am asking for your support to help raise the funds to cover my tuition and living expenses for the duration of this internship program. The program begins January 2017 and to cover these costs for the entire 11-month program, I need to raise $8,000. Please consider helping support this project and the hundreds of youth we work with by donating and/or sharing today! Thank you so much for your support! Together we can equip the next generation of small landholder farmers with the skills needed to succeed in a challenging and rapidly changing environment!


In return for your support, we are offering several rewards to donors as a small toke of our appreciation:

< $50 = Personalized assortment of seeds designed for your local climate and Thank you letter from Costa Rica

$50-$100 = Personalized assortment of seeds designed for your local climate, thank you letter from Costa Rica, and your choice of 1 Lb fair trade shade grown coffee or 1 Lb pure organic cane sugar hand selected from the heart of Costa Rica.

$100-$500 = Personalized assortment of seeds designed for your local climate, thank you letter from Costa Rica, and a framed print of your favorite shot from my photo blog during the training program

> $500 = Personalized assortment of seeds designed for your local climate, thank you letter from Costa Rica, 1 Lb of fair trade shade grown coffee, 1 Lb of pure organic cane sugar from the heart of Costa Rica, and a framed print of your favorite shot from my photo blog during the training program

With All Donations:
My sincere gratitude and deep appreciation for your support as we work together to continue changing lives and empowering the next generation of farmers who will rebuild local food systems and provide access to sustainable, nutritious food for all!


Thanks again!!!
 
Warm regards,

Connor F. Harron (MA)
Doctoral Student, University of California-Irvine
Program Coordinator, Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation
Research Associate, Center for Unconventional Security Affairs
Founder, Swaziland Food Sovereignty Initiative
Consultant, Create Purpose
Consultant, Love A community