Illène Pevec

About 

After graduating with a doctorate in Design and Planning from the University of Colorado Boulder, Illène became a Research Affiliate of the Children Youth and Environments Center housed in the Program of Environmental Design. The CYE Center merged into CEDaR to help develop sustainable and healthy environments for children and youth everywhere. Illène is currently  working with an international team of community development and health professionals and researchers in the mountains of Peru helping to develop community gardens in barren eviornments. 

Puebla, Mexico 

Between 2013 - 2017 Illène worked with Casa Cuna Palafox y Mendoza, a day care center for low income families in Puebla to develop an organic food garden as an educational natural environment designed to attract butterflies and birds. The food grown provided the young children and their parents with healthy food. Many local and international high school and university student volunteers collaborated to clear debris, paint a mural and plant with the young children. Illène wrote a Spanish curriculum and worked with the teachers to ensure long term engagement of the children in enjoying nature play and planting and harvesting food and knowledge. The garden continues to be a place for joy, food and learning through doing

Research (2017-2018) in Pachacamac , Peru as told by Illèn

The Wawa Illari project in Pachacamac, Peru with refugee communities of indigenous families living on rocky hillsides is a mixed methods intervention accompanied by research into the health of the first thousand days in children’s lives. The purpose was to support healthy development and measure the impact of multiple interventions. The Parents in the study group received training in the International Child Development Project (ICDP) methodology for empathic parenting and classes in “Comida Consciente” along with food supplies for these healthy meals as well as hygiene education. We provided training and gardening supplies, vegetable seeds and a fruit tree for two community gardens at preschools and home gardens for all 104 children in the study intervention group.The control group of similar size received the same medical exams and treatments for any problem found that needed attention and educational toys for their children. Funding for this project came from Grand Challenges Canada Saving Brains program. Our research team had members from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Canada and the US/Brazil. We worked closely with the community public health nurses.

González-Fernández D, Mazzini Salom AS, Herrera Bendezu F, Huamán S, Rojas Hernández B, Pevec I, Galarza Izquierdo EM, Armstrong N, Thomas V, Vela Gonzáles S, Gonzáles Saravia C, Scott ME and Koski KG (2020) A Multi-Sectoral Approach Improves Early Child Development in a Disadvantaged Community in Peru: Role of Community Gardens, Nutrition Workshops and Enhanced Caregiver-Child Interaction: Project “Wawa Illari”. Front. Public Health 8:567900. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.567900

Illène’s book covers research with 95 adolescent gardeners in New York, New Mexico, Colorado and Oakland California:

Growing A Life: Teen Gardeners Harvest Food, Health and Joy , available via https://nyupress.org/9781613320174/growing-a-life/