Tampipi ng Ugnayan: Cultivating Collective Care Amidst Disconnection
In bleak times, we need to remember to turn more towards each other. Be a partner in this limited collaboration towards co-creating healthier, more connected and more sovereign food futures.
Hello mga ka-Ugnayan!
Kumusta? It’s been a while since our last email, and we’ve since collectively felt the impacts of war abroad, the discord and drama in the senate locally, and the mass cutting of half-century-old trees for business interest. These events can induce feelings of despair, but we stubbornly hold onto hope when we witness acts of kindness and courage by our kapwa.
In this Liham ng Ugnayan, we share one of the ways we can choose connection and care in times when we might otherwise isolate ourselves in so-called self-preservation. It is in times of crisis, grief and hopelessness that we need to remember to turn more towards each other.
What acts of kindness and courage give us hope for the future?
In spite of everything, small (but also big) acts of kindness and courage remind us that not all is lost yet. Whether it’s a friend cooking a meal for you or maybe inviting you to volunteer for a community kitchen, senators who uphold the integrity of our institutions in spite of its many failings, and advocates protesting against the building of yet another expressway that serves the few and not the many. The list goes on.
We’re not sure what these different acts amount to in the end.
We can make all sorts of projections or forecasts, strategy documents; monitor and evaluate one too many metrics of success, and still miss the mark. That uncertainty is enough to make some people give up and just cocoon themselves. But we’ve seen how it is precisely that uncertainty that pushes some people to audaciously live today as if the world we are longing for already exists. Because in some ways, it’s already here, though not yet fully formed.
One of the groups that has been moving us is Good Food Community, which recently celebrated its 15th year of cultivating a culture of collective care for and with farmers and eaters alike.
Good Food Community (GFC) is solidarity-based organization that practices Pamayanihan, a way of growing and sharing vegetables based on principles of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA).
It is a relationship where urban-dwelling folks like you commit to subscribing to GFC’s farmers' harvest and get it delivered weekly. This assures GFC’s farmers that there's a market for their produce so they can focus on cultivating their ecological agriculture practices.
We see the Good Food Community team’s kindness in their dedication to sourcing from their smallholder farmers, even with the escalating challenges brought upon them by the oil crisis.
We see their courage in their audacity to put forward a different way of being and moving in this world and in our economy.
They keep going year after year, in spite of the challenges of peddling CSA, which is of the past and of the future. And so, it struggles to exist in our present culture of on-demand convenience where consumers have become accustomed to “frictionless” consumption.
When we created Ugnayan Cards in 2023, we wondered how we might use our personal strengths, and eventually, as our following grew, how we might also use the collective strength of our ka-Ugnayans to connect people more with and through food.
This led to the coming together of @hapagugnayan in 2024 (now also on Substack with Halina sa Hapag Ugnayan) – a separate but connected initiative to @ugnayancards. Through potlucks of food and creativity — such as visits to women farmers in Quezon and Cavite, the Luto Likha Linang gathering in October last year, Latag last February and Tahian last March — we hope to reconnect people with the land, the kitchen and each other.
And so, we find hope in witnessing others’ kindness and courage, and we keep that hope alive through our attempts to do something too.
We believe in the power of food to bring people together, and we believe in the power of questions in unlocking and deepening our connection with one another.
As we lay the tablescapes for collective care, we ask:
How might we cultivate more meaningful connection and solidarity between farmers and eaters?
How might we nurture a community of eaters who nourish other eaters too?
One of the main challenges Good Food Community has faced over the years is in meaningfully shifting the material conditions of farmers. This entails more than us sharing social media posts advocating for farmers’ rights; more than giving one-off donations as acts of charity.
It asks us to cultivate a culture of enoughness, of reciprocity, of justice and equity.
It invites us to see a future that is different from the dominant ways things are. It is a refusal to resign ourselves to “the way the world works” — because that narrative is created by those who benefit from the unsustainability of it all. It asks to live today as if that future already exists.
So from June 12 to July 5, we’re seeking your solidarity in bringing a piece of that future into the present together.
In Tagalog, “ka-” is a prefix that indicates connection, partnership, or shared identity.
To be a ka-gulay means being someone who shares our same gulay, and through our Tampipi ng Ugnayan, someone who engages with us through pagtataya or betting on small organic farmers and on growing our ka-gulay community.
We’ve created the Tampipi ng Ugnayan, not merely as a product or commodity, but as an experience and an invitation to community.
By choosing either our Small Tampipi (P3,190) or Gulay Pambahay (P3,890) package, you will receive:
A 4-week subscription for organic veggies from Good Food Community1 (to be delivered on July 9, 16, 23 and 30)
1 deck of Ugnayan Cards2
An invitation to an exclusive Ka-gulay online gathering on July 11 (Saturday), 9:30-11:15AM to get acquainted with Ugnayan Cards + Good Food Community, the contents of your tampipi and your fellow subscribers or mga ka-gulay!
An invitation to an in-person salo-salo on July 19 (Sunday), 12:00NN-4:00PM at Good Food Sundays in Mandala Park for a Hapag Ugnayan potluck of food and creativity!
An invitation to an exclusive GFC Ka-gulay Telegram group for relevant reminders and inspiration to support you on your gulay ugnayan journey!
This ka-gulay partnership enables you to connect with farmers through their produce while opening a space for you to connect with a ka-gulay community!
We hope that this initiative helps strengthen our culture of collective care towards flourishing and food sovereignty for all.
* We’ve also created this FAQs document for you, and you can contact us via email, Instagram or simply by replying to this post for any other questions you may have. 😊
As a special treat for early supporters, we’re giving the first 5 ka-gulay subscribers a FREE set of Ugnayan postcards worth P370!
Got other questions? We’ve got answers! Read our Tampipi ng Ugnayan + Ka-gulay FAQs here.
When the world’s problems feel overwhelming, we remind ourselves that change is made possible through connection. This reminds us of the agency we have to co-create the future we aspire for through the relationships we already have and the relationships we want to grow. We look forward to cultivating these connections with you as our ka-gulay.
Salamat sa patuloy na paglinang ng ugnayan (at ng gulay na rin)! 😄
Hanggang sa susunod na ani!
You can choose to get either a Gulay Pambahay or Small Tampipi of organic veggies. Gulay Pambahay is set of 10-13 kinds of ecologically and ethically grown produce, 3-3.5 kilos worth. Great for a family of 3-5 or 1-2 pax if your household is on a plant-based diet or consumes a lot of veggies. Small Tampipi contains 7-10 varieties of produce, 2-2.5kg worth, that balances biodiverse choices with the realities of a small household, or of one taking tiny steps towards a healthier, plant-based diet.
If you already have your own deck and no longer want to avail of the deck included in this tampipi, you can swap this out for 4 sets of postcard sets (also the same value), or ask us for a discount code to get P1000 off on you Tampipi ng Ugnayan.