August 2008 update
For those with difficult green waste to home compost, the shredder* is back in action and available for use in the Cranes Park area - phone Penny for info.  
*funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. 

Compost guidelines

Visits to our growing project are also available - but we are now concentrating on Spring activities for this and public outside locations.  Plant resources for schools are available.

Phone Penny for more info on our Parallel Projects/organics education... 

Parallel education is being set up in schools in Kingston and Sierra Leone... these are basic building blocks for the long term development of greater sharing between our two countries. 

AIMS : In Kingston we are working on footprints in food production and diet  with overlapping waste and health issues.  Parallel project work with Sierra Leone on food farming avoiding GM and monoculture,  protecting land, protecting ecosystems, reducing carbon footprint and providing carbon sinks with emphasis on locally produced compost and food.

Background to Sierra Leone work

In November 2007 Penny received an email from Olatunde the Executive Director of Friends of the Earth Sierra Leone, (FOESL is a national group and Sierra Leone is in West Africa)  requesting partnership working on food and composting.  FOESL have a substantial agricultural project. 

A Statement of Shared Values was agreed in March 2008 including issues covering Food Sovereignty. Food Sovereignty is about people having control over their food and agriculture. In March we identified Hull FOE's partnership work with FOESL and networking between Hull, Kingston and FOESL has now been agreed. 

Freetown the city where FOESL work has Africa's largest natural harbour! 

Practical Support and Shared Information

Our mutual desire to "work side by side"
Olatunde Johnson, Executive Director of FOESL summer 2008.

Seeds sent by KFOE are now being used by FOESL trainees, who will report back ...soil kits have been sent in April, comfrey from our allotment plots is to follow.  We have gained a lot of information from FOESL about their work and their situation and through research we have found devastating statistical information on the hardship faced in the area FOESL work. 

Over a few months we have established regular exchange of information and are involved in advising FOESL on issues they have not previously had access to.  We have identified numerous obstacles which make it very difficult for FOESL and others to develop and we are inspired by their vision, enthusiasm, goodwill and modesty.  Schools interested in learning more can contact Penny for a talk.

In July 2008 FOESL informed us that thanks to help received, they would be resuming their waste collections in Freetown.  The fragility of Freetown is such that people have been killed when the heavy rains cause slides including rubbish.  Sierra Leone has a statistcal rating of 50% malnourished and statistics found this year quoted Freetown as having the world's highest infant mortality.  We are very enthusiastic about working with courageous and pioneering Friends of the Earth Sierra Leone.  We hope to work with FOESL on issues surrounding the waste streams in Freetown.  The very modest resources we send are greatly appreciated and we hope to find ways of increasing support. 

Here in Kingston - Our established composting project is part of a wider project including food education (ie environmental cost of diet, local/sustainable production** and packaging),  both on growing your own and consumerism, wider health and sustainability issues.  We hope our education and resouces will continue to develop with a freestanding and self sufficient project for organics exending beyond food and compost.

Assemblies and project work have already started in 2008 including new project work.  We've started maintenance and development of project work started in schools visited last year.  A grant provided by Kingston Council in 2008 will see our new education on food available in September with resources that can be used all year round - by all.

See our schools page for more information about our work in schools.

If your school would like us to visit and provide an activity on composting and/or food contact PennyKFOE@aol.com.  Kingston FoE currently has some wormeries funded by Royal Borough of Kingston - If your school would like one please contact us ASAP - with the warmer weather they won't be about for much longer. 

Wormeries to Kingston households 

In 2006 Kingston FOE distributed the majority of the 70 wormeries of various types. These are funded by Kingston Council and we will be targeting those areas we have identified as most in need - households who do not have the facilities to use a compost bin, but have something like a balcony or a ground floor flat with direct access to open space or internal communal space.  We are aware through our contact with local people in their homes, both through Kingston FOE and other work, that some improvements to the environment and quality of life could be managed through more support via gardening and composting work.  Some wormeries have also been distributed to Kingston in 2007 and 2008 - to Kingston's schools - this work continues... call Penny 0n 020 8 399 5147, to find out more and about the food project we are providing to Kingston's schoolchildren and networking to Sierra Leone.

 ** GLOBAL ISSUES - FOOD & ENERGY...C.A.T. author Paul Mobbs (discussing issues on FOE list) see our Food page