Title: WORKSHOP: Earth Repair – Grassroots Remedies for Detoxing and Healing Contaminated and Damaged Land
Location: U of G, University Centre (UC) 441
Link out: Click here
Description: Are you passionate about growing and gathering your own food and medicine, but are concerned that the soil in your community is contaminated by heavy metals or chemicals? Do you live in a place where industrial activity formerly occurred or is currently taking place and are concerned about the toxic legacies left behind?
From converting vacant city lots into urban farms, community gardens, and gathering spaces to growing safe and healthy food and medicine in our backyards, 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.
The workshop will cover the basics of different grassroots 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.
Other topics that may be covered in the workshop include soil testing, oil spills, protective gear and self care, detox, and herbal allies for grassroots remediators, frontline communities and disaster responders.. Welcome to the wild world of grassroots bioremediation and earth repair.

Bio: 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 campaigns such as tar sands, fracking, nuclear energy, coal, climate justice, water protection, and more. She is a certified permaculture designer and has also apprenticed on different organic farms across Canada and the USA. She has also given workshops on grassroots bioremediation and earth repair for a diversity of groups and organizations, such as Langara College, The Victoria Compost Education Centre, The Purple Thistle Youth Cooperative, The Radical Mycology Convergence, The Urban Farmer Field School, The Village Building Convergence, The Art of Mycorenewal, The Camas Free School, and The Cowichan Land Trust.
She is the author of the new book “Earth Repair: A Grassroots Guide to Healing Toxic and Damaged Landscapes”. For more information, check out her website at www.earthrepair.ca.

Start Time:  5:45 pm
Date: 2013-08-06
End Time:  8:45 pm