2025 Essential Skills Classes

2025 Essential Skills Classes 

All of our classes are free for Indigenous partcipants (inclusive of peoples in the Afrikan diaspora). We offer trades, scholarships, and sliding scale pricing for people who lack funds and we gladly accept donations. In person classes will be in the East Suburbs of Ga’sgöhsagöh / Rochester, NY. Online classes will be held over zoom, insha’Allah. Click on each class title to sign up and see descriptions below.

 

 

Class Descriptions

Introduction to Foraging & Plant Identification (In Person East Suburbs of Rochester, NY) – Saturday June 14th 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m – $40

Learning the land around us and walking in right relationship with other living beings can empower us. A world of gratitude and certainty opens up when we learn how abundant the food plants are (and why – Indigenous planting). We will meet in a local green space and start out with a seated discussion of ethnobotany, basic safety, proper identification, invasive species, sustainable harvest, and processing techniques. Then, we will walk and identify some plants. Participants will walk away with tools to help tend to ecosystems as well as feed themselves and their communities. 

Long Term Food Storage & Emergency Food Caches (Online) – Thursday June 12th 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. EST – $30

Worried about the apocalypse? Want to make sure your people are fed during hard times? This class will give you the tools to safely store enough calories for yourself and those around you. We’ll cover long term storage, calorie calculations, accessible sources for bulk food, and the benefits of maintaining multiple food caches (including collaboration with neighbors). Participants will receive resource lists and helpful spreadsheet templates after class. 

COVID / Pandemic Safety for Yourself and Your Community (Online) – Thursday June 19th 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. EST – Suggested Donation $15

In this class we will discuss strategies for practicing safety around disease transmision to keep ourselves and our communities safe. This class is essential for workers in emergency response, medical practitioners, people working with immunocompromised disabled people, and anyone who cares about long term communal thriving. Being sick or disabled is not a moral failure, but knowingly infecting others, especially vulnerable people, is an act of war. 

COVID and other circulating pandemics including bird flu, mpox, rsv, norovirus, and antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria have killed and disabled many people in our communities. Over-exploited communities face dire consequences in relation to these illnesses. We’ll give a comprehensive overview of mitigation strategies as well as steps for responsibly handling exposures. We will also discuss caring for people currently sick and people with long COVID. At the end of class we will hold space for a community conversation on grief, disability, transcending unequal relationships, and working across distances to thrive beyond this shitstorm. 

Cooking and Eating Foraged Foods (In Person) – Saturday July 12th 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. EST – $50

In this class we will demonstrate different cooking techniques with foraged ingredients and local foods. I’ll cook a delicious lunch for you and you’ll leave with some tasty treats. Dishes incorporating zabiha halaal meat will be available as well as vegetarian options. 

Please note any allergies and dietary requirements in the sign up form. We will do our best to respect students’ needs; however, our kitchen staff can not guarantee total allergenic sterility with our equipment. Attendees will be required to sign a liability waiver before attending. 

Food Preservation (Online) – Thursday July 17th 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. EST – $30

When you grow and forage food, food preservation becomes a necessary skill to sharpen. Sometimes the harvest is so abundant that it can be overwhelming! In this class we will discuss small scale systems you can set up to preserve a ton of food to feed yourself and the people around you. This is an essential ancestral skill. We’ll cover low energy techniques like dehydration, fermentation, high fat recipes as well as high energy techniques like pressure canning. We will discuss safety, proper handling, and storage. You will leave this class with helpful tips and tricks to preserve almost anything you may encounter so that your pantry is full come winter.

Designing Food Forests (Online) – Tuesday July 29th 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. EST – $30

Food forests are gaining popularity as people return to acquiring their food with less work (and pollution) than conventional agriculture. This class is for the lazy, but patient gardener. Once established, food forests can feed countless people with minimal maintenance. Food forests can last generations – as exemplified by Indigenous food forests that have survived colonization, genocide, and displacement across Turtle Island (North America). In this class, we will discuss species selection, site selection, making designs, sourcing plants and seeds, and finally implementation. This class will be specific to the Eastern Forests of Turtle Island (North America). 

Processing and Cooking a Sheep: Start to Finish (Late Lunch Included – In Person East Suburbs of Rochester, NY) – Date to be decided for Early Fall, Rochester, NY – 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. – $100

10 places available

In this class I will demonstrate how to slaughter a sheep in the Muslim tradition to make the meat Zabiha Halaal, insha’Allah. Together, we will skin and butcher the animal. We will go over South Asian recipes for the organs and other parts of the sheep often ignored by Western palettes. We will discuss ways to use every portion of the sheep’s body. The class will include a light lunch and a bbq dinner incorporating fresh meat as well as fresh ingredients from our family garden.

Please note any allergies and dietary requirements in the sign up form. We will do our best to respect students’ needs; however, our kitchen staff can not guarantee total allergenic sterility with our equipment. Attendees will be required to sign a liability waiver before attending.