Building two-way connections between communities and the institutions that serve them—with emphasis on food safety leadership—is the focus of study for GIFSL program analyst Farhiya Farah, M.P.H. Farah began Ph.D. studies this fall under the auspices of a prestigious Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship, which provides a highly select group of Midwestern mid-career professionals an opportunity to develop their leadership skills to improve communities.
Former director of health and nutrition for PICA Head Start in Minneapolis, Farah applied to the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellows program with the goal of pursuing further graduate studies that would help her help build stronger bridges between communities, including her own Somalian immigrant community and institutions that serve them. Her focus is on engagement—creating linkages that encourage communities to take a leadership role in meeting the challenges they face. Too often, she says, “helping organizations” try to do things to communities in need, rather than with them.
“This shuts them out,” she says. “Until communities know how to solve their own problems it will be a continual tailspin.”
Through various public health positions she has held in the Twin Cities, Farah came to realize that the biggest roadblocks to health are not physical, but social. When she surveyed members of various communities to learn what their barriers to health and happiness were, “They didn’t say surgery, or prescription medicine, none of that,” she says. Their answer? Fragmentation, isolation, social and spiritual disconnection—things, Farah contends, “helping organizations” are not equipped to deal with on their own.
“Good will and good intention have their limits,” Farah says. Instead, she says, communities must become engaged in their own solutions. “How do we promote a system where the community itself takes on the leadership role?”
For Farah, the Bush Fellowship is a big part of the answer. The award will help her create new models for community engagement and bottom-up leadership in the context of global food systems leadership.
Farah, who calls being a Bush Leadership Fellow “an incredible privilege,” has hit the ground running with her new program. She has been working with GIFSL in program development, evaluation, and analysis. She traveled to Ecuador to help with the evaluation component of the Executive Leadership in Food Safety (ELFS) program. She’s also working with some initiatives building on the Whole Village project in Tanzania. Her ultimate goal: to improve health and well-being by empowering communities to take the lead on food system leadership—an effort she expects will reach across cultures worldwide and right back home to Minnesota to enhance community engagement.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” Farah says.
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