Garden Education, Gardening & Urban Agriculture

Consultant contracts: Garden Education Facilitators
Organization: The Depot Community Food Centre
Location: NDG, Montréal, Quebec

Our garden and environmental education program, Ça pousse!, is currently looking for a Garden Education Facilitator to be part of our team of consultants who give our garden education workshops at local public schools. Ça pousse! is part of The Depot CFC’s urban agriculture stream and brings engaging and inspiring garden and environmental education to elementary and secondary students enrolled in our partnering schools across CDN-NDG. We also build, install and maintain learning gardens in educational spaces. The urban agriculture consultant team is supported by the program coordinator as well as by The Depot's urban agriculture team.

About The Depot

Founded in 1986, The Depot Community Food Centre is a community-based non-profit organization that works collaboratively with its community to address the root causes of hunger and poverty in NDG and the surrounding areas in a manner that ensures dignity, engagement and the development of human potential. We offer many food-based programs to support the food security and healthy eating habits of youth, families and individuals. Our activities are built around four main pillars: share, grow, cook and mobilize.

The Depot is working towards creating an organizational culture based on dignity, respect, care and openness, where anti-oppression and anti-racism are living and embodies practices. To achieve this, we aim to recruit a team that is representative of NDG’s diverse identities and lived experiences in order for our work to be by and for our communities.

Key Responsibilities :

• Facilitate urban agriculture workshops, both in the classroom and in parent-child garden sessions;
• Review, understand and provide feedback on Ça pousse! workshop content and materials;
• Pick-up and return workshop materials to and from the Depot each workshop day;
• Maintain good working relationships with partnering schools’ staff;
• Participate in two Ça pousse! orientation and reflection events per year;
• Occasionally support simple garden bed construction and installation projects for schools.

Required profile :

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a strong sense of collaboration;
• Self-motivated and able to work both autonomously and within a team;
• Strong knowledge of and experience in urban agriculture or horticulture, with the ability to share this knowledge in gardens and school contexts;
• Demonstrated skills in group facilitation across age group, particularly with children and youth, as well as adults, seniors, and individuals experiencing food insecurity, etc.;
• Experience and/or strong interest in creating safe learning environments and collaborating for a just and ecological future;
• Fluent in French, both written and spoken;
• Experience in developing and maintaining good relationships with partners;
• Interest and/or experience in group dynamics, conflict resolution or nonviolent communication approaches.

Other requirements

• Must have a valid driver's license

Other assets (useful but not required)

• Understanding of food systems and/or food security issues;
• Basic understanding of, or familiarity with, school / teacher / classroom contexts;
• Experience or familiarity with constructing simple installations in urban gardens;
• Experience or strong interest in effective community organizing, including engagement, popular education and participatory program design;
• Proficiency in English, written and oral, as we work with some schools in the English school board;
• Comfort driving a cube truck (regular driving license).

Our offer

• $22.28/h not salaried, no minimum hours are guaranteed. The number of workshops offered will depend on those requested by our partnering schools and the availability of our consultant team.

• The consultant will have a self-employment status and will not be an employee of the Depot Community Food Centre.
• Consultants are offered contracts which they are free to accept or refuse, and must bill The Depot for hours worked.

To apply

To apply, please send your CV and cover letter by email to: emploi@depotmtl.org

Please indicate you saw this posting at GoodWork.ca.

This is a rolling application process; we will be reviewing applications as they come in, so please apply as soon as possible! We thank all applicants for their interest. However, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

If you have questions about the job or the application process, please contact Alejandra Perez at capousse@depotmtl.org .

We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet ALL of the qualifications we're looking for. Let us know why you are up to the task.