Photo Opportunity Tuesday 16 October 2007, 12.30pm . The Angels, Endcott Close, Gorton, Manchester M18 8BR (Event runs 10am-4pm)

Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) and Debdale Eco Centre will be hosting a free community celebration to mark World Food Day on 16 October 2007. Women community growers of diverse cultures will join together at the The Angels, Endcott Close, Gorton, Manchester from across Manchester and the rest of England, to share inspiration and the fruits of their plots.

Members of community growing groups including Sho Nirbhor from Bradford, Burnley Food Links, Heeley City Farm, Sheffield, Eagles Wings from Bury and Productive Landscapes, Preston are expected to attend along with Spitalfields City Farm from London, as well as many other interested and new growers.

WEN will be offering groups support with the development of their projects. There will be workshops on composting with Debdale Eco Centre, seed-saving from WEN and On the Eighth Day will show how to make beauty products from everyday kitchen ingredients.

The highlight for many will be the delicious vegetarian Eritrean lunch made by Lem Lem Kahsay using local and organic ingredients. The day will end with an inspirational visit to the new Debdale Eco Centre which demonstrates different water saving, food growing and composting methods.

ENDS

For further information please contact: Caroline Fernandez, Women’s Environmental Network on 0787 6777327 or 020 7481 9004 or Val Rawlinson, Debdale Eco Centre on 0161-220 9199 e-mail: carofern@dsl.piex.com; web:www.wen.org.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) is a national charity and membership organisation which campaigns on environmental and health issues from a women’s perspective. It educates, informs and empowers women and men who care about the environment.

2. The ‘Taste of a Better Future’ Network was set up seven years ago to help ethnic minority women’s groups develop organic food growing skills. It recognises that such groups have little access to affordable organic food, particularly traditional fruit and vegetable varieties, or to gardens of their own. Over the last six years, the 50+ groups in the Network have brought new life to some of the most unlikely spaces on housing estates and disused inner city plots. As well as nutritious food, they have enjoyed making new friends, sharing skills and bolstering their communities. The current project, ‘Cultivating the Future’, offers support and training to urban women’s growing groups.