I've built a market garden CIC-style business on what used to be a 2.5 acre horse paddock in High Wycombe. I sell to local shops and to high-end restaurants in London via 2 distributors - a local grower and Natoora.

I practice no-dig / no till, and only use green waste compost and chicken manure in terms of fertility. I use row covers, interplanting, and a good knowlege of vegetables as pest control, and I follow the principles of agroecology where I aim to focus on building local economies and communities.

I also work in partnership with a local SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) school to integrate nature-learning into their curriculum. As ensuring that our future remains connected to nature and the ways in which food is produced is vital to us sustaining an understanding of mother nature.

I specialise in growing a diverse mix of baby whole leaf salad, heirloom tomatoes, spring onions, and specialty courgettes / summer squash in all shapes and colours.

I started the project because I believed that many social and environmental issues can be resolved through the act of growing food. Along the way, an additional bonus has been representing an alternative image of what one would think of as a 'farmer'. Proving that even if you are a 5ft 1, cheery Southeast Asian woman in a country you didn't grow up in, if you put yourself out there, opportunities will come.

I support the CoFarm Cambridge site by running volunteer and harvest days, alongside 3 other members of the core team. The market garden, in its first season on less than 2 acres, has raised over 4 tonnes of food for local food hubs around Cambridge. I also support in keeping the Excel sheet up to date with harvest data.

At my time here I've learnt a lot about what it takes to start a market garden in an empty field and getting the right infrastructure in. It's taught me about the power of community support as we could not have gone through the first season without a strong regular group of passionate volunteers. I've also learnt a lot more about planning the farm as an ecosystem, looking more in-depth into the role of flowers, trees, shrubs, and insects.

I spent 9 weeks at Charles Dowding's Homeacres garden in Somerset, learning growing through his no dig / no till methods which focuses on leaving soil undisturbed and therefore preserving the soil's ecosystem, as well as composting and using compost as a mulch.

I gained essential experience and knowledge about working in a small-scale market garden selling salad bags to local shops and restaurants, and veg boxes for locals. Working with Charles taught me so much about the importance of simplicity, efficient process and design, and attention to detail especially when it comes to timing and planning your growing year.

I volunteered at a 60 acre local certified organic farm that runs 2 CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box schemes and sells wholesale at a local wholefoods shop.

My time here was my first insight into field crops being produced at such scale. I learnt a lot about how to run a CSA scheme, propagation and watering on a much larger scale, and how to use various machinery such as the planter, weeder, and driving a compact tractor.

Repowering London is a non-profit organisation that focuses on renewable community energy. I am currently working part time on their Energy Garden project that aims to utilise disused Overground spaces by turning them into community gardens, in efforts to tackle climate change, encourage biodiversity in London by creating green corridors, and integrate nature into the everyday lives of London commuters.

I am supporting on project management and operations by organising and managing plans/events for the gardens, managing community engagagement, funding research, systems management, and garden maintence.

I've also worked on a site redesign by focusing and advising on user-experience design as well as analysed their site and social media data to inform, build, and execute a social media comms strategy.

I spent 5 years at Verve where I joined as a graduate in 2014 and left fulfilling a role akin to a team leader in 2019. Throughout my time there, I developed various management skills with a focus on digital products. Some highlights of my responsibilities included:

• Line management, including supporting direct reports through promotion;
• Playing a major role in ensuring new and existing products are developed with the client in mind by providing feedback to developers through analysis of user journeys, task flows, and QA-ing the product from a client-perspective;
• Developing several digital products such as an online reporting tool, a multi-lingual mobile app, and a community management platform;
• Championing and implementing behaviour change in the team when transitioning to new digital products;
• Providing strategic leadership on the operational side for accounts responsible for a 3rd of the company’s revenue;
• Community management, specialising in multi-market communities;
• Reporting on and analysing KPIs;
• Improving on processes allowing for some projects to be delivered 40% quicker;
• Leading internal and client meetings and presentations;
• Championing the use of new tools which increased community participation by 30%;
• Independently managing qual and quant projects with varying complexities and timescales;
• Using DNN modules to create and upload site content on community website;
• Editing newsletters and survey emails using basic HTML.

Shelter Community School provided education to refugees temporarily living in Malaysia as they await to be relocated by the UNHCR. I taught students aged 7 to 18 different classes such as English, Art, Geography, and Character-building.