ISED Solutions started its EET award collaboration
with 20 refugee farming incubator projects (RFIPs) nationwide, to review
beginning farmer curricula and programs for refugees, identify the gaps and develop, pilot test, and
distribute specialized curricula, course workshop modules, and multiple instructional
tools and manuals for instructors and technical assistance providers. We also focused increasingly
on specialized methods – skills development that also lacking among RFIPs
personnel, and that lacking these can put refugee projects and farmers at a large developmental
disadvantage.
Achievements related to the major
objectives were:
*Established three EET project teams: Developers, Evaluators (Testers) and Advisory team.
*Collected over 100 existing curricula, identified gaps, and establish development priorities. Posted onto a Google drive for partner and staff access and use. Converted / upgraded more than 30 to post to website for brand access.
*Planned and initiated development of 26 new modules incorporating audience content with instructional methods targeting farmers, and/or instructor training or guidance tools targeting trainers.
*Planned and began developing comprehensive skills and capacity development for RFIP trainers / instructors, via written guidance, webinars, conference calls, readings, and meeting presentations.
*Organized six multi-day meetings to bring together all partners, and also connect with other incubators, in sync with the New Entry/NIFTI annual conference in the fall.
*Supported a Community of Practice development approach via national meetings, webinars, conference calls, emails, resource sharing, and joint planning and development of resources designed for use by any or all interested refugee farming incubators.
*Began dissemination via Farm Answers, New Entry / NIFTI, IRC, and other partners.
*Attended USDA/BFRDP grantee meetings every year.
As of Years 3&4, we posted over 60 new and expanded resources. These are available here: https://nesfp.org/new-american-resources. Also, a comprehensive teaching handbook was developed for staff who are providing (T&TA) in immigrant and refugee farmer-training programs. There have been over 4500 downloads.