Española Healing Foods Oasis. Courtesy/PEEC
PEEC News:
Join the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) and Talavi Cook and Kayleigh Warren from Tewa Women United at 6 p.m., May 11 for a live-streamed Zoom talk about the creation of the Española Healing Foods Oasis (EHFO) and how it promotes Indigenous food sovereignty and environmental justice.
The EHFO is an edible, medicinal garden that utilizes traditional dry-land farming techniques and Indigenous Sustainable Design. The EHFO provides seasonal food, seeds, herbs, meandering pathways, beauty, and shade while solving erosion problems on the hillside and harvesting precious rainwater.
About the Speakers:
Talavai Denipah-Cook – comes from Ohkay Owingeh, Hopi and Diné. She is the Environmental Justice Program Manager at Tewa Women United. She has received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Biology and her master’s degree in Conservation Biology. One of the reasons she is in the environmental field is due to her passion for caring for and defending Mother Earth’s creations from anthropogenic issues. “It is our obligation to reconnect with the elements of the earth in a physical, mental, and spiritual manner,” Denipah-Cook said.
Kayleigh Warren – is Tewa and Tiwa from the Pueblos of Santa Clara and Isleta. She was raised in the traditional Pueblo farming lifeway in Santa Clara Pueblo. From her land-based upbringing as well as through community and professional mentorship, she has focused on becoming an advocate for ancestral lands protection and the preservation of Pueblo land-based lifeways, especially farming and ethnobotanical traditions. She has worked in native plant preservation, monitoring and cultivating threatened and endangered plant species in western Oregon and southern New Mexico, and in supporting Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives in communities across the country. Her undergraduate studies are focused on botany and ecology. Outside of the office, Warren spends her time preparing and promoting traditional foods, seed keeping, tending her family’s fields and gardens in Santa Clara Pueblo, and continually learning about and loving the flora of her homelands.
Tewa Women United (TWU) is a multicultural and multiracial organization founded and led by Native women in the Tewa homelands of northern New Mexico. TWU was incorporated for educational, social, and benevolent purposes, specifically for the ending of all forms of violence against Native women and girls, Mother Earth, and to promote peace in New Mexico.
For more information about this event and registration, visit the following link, Creating the Española Healing Foods Oasis, and for other PEEC programs, visit peecnature.org/events, email kristen@peecnature.org, or call 505.662.0460.
PEEC was founded in 2000 to serve the community of Los Alamos. It offers people of all ages a way to enrich their lives by strengthening their connections to our canyons, mesas, mountains, and skies. PEEC operates the Los Alamos Nature Center at 2600 Canyon Road, holds regular programs and events, and hosts several interest groups from birding to hiking to butterfly watching. PEEC activities are open to everyone; however, members receive exclusive benefits such as discounts on programs and gift shop merchandise. Annual memberships start at $35. To learn more, visit peecnature.org/support/membership/.