About the Dutch partner, Noodhulp Nederland

Noodhulp Nederland was called before The Gift Foundation, it is a national network in the Netherlands of provincial contact points to help people living in poverty. It aims to help both on material and immaterial level, as welll as on reducing isolation and solitude. The Noodhulp works by using social media like Hyves and Facebook and the Web, to connect people. Needs and gifts can be advertised on an online marketplace. Help is also offered to collect and bring the goods. Main principle is that no money is asked or transferred, all goods and services are on free gift basis. The Gift Foundation is founded in 2010 by Lucia Amaya. A recent project around food is ‘share your garden’. This project aims to connect people together with surplus from the garden. To support poor people by setting up gardens and sharing the surplus.
http://www.noodhulpnl.nl/

About the Dutch Coordinator, Monique

Responsible for the project Future of Food is Monique Wijn. She is founder of the project ‘the Goddess, edible Landscape’, based on raising awareness, facilitating and educating on aspects of edible wild plants, permaculture, rawfood and health. The Goddess has several gardens based on organic agriculture and permaculture, growing edible wild plants and seeds of (pre)historic varieties of vegetables and cereals, edible flowers and fruits.

The Goddess organises courses on nutrition and raw food, permaculture and selfsustaining lifestyles and transition to resilience. Recently she is involved in several national and international projects.
Contact: info@degodin.nl, website: www.degodin.nl. Blog: http://degodin.wordpress.com/

Monique (1958) is fascinated with food since a long time. She studied biology and became a vegetarian in that time. Food was her main topic, with to environmental health and complementary medicine. She worked in nutrition education creating educational materials for analphabetic mediterranean women in the Netherlands. In the ninetees she leaded a green consumer organisation raising awareness on the ecological and social impacts of food production. She leaded campaigns on the risk of genetic engineering and radiation of food; on the impact of global transport of food; on agri-biodiversity and on oestrogenes in food.
For her, healthy food is only truly healthy if it is at the same time healthy for plants, animals and the planet. For this she studied biodynamic agriculture, permaculture and agroforestry. Since 12 years she is a gardener and has a diet of mostly raw, vegan and wild plants.
She wants to explore the relation of food and health on all four dimensions (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) and the relation of food and consciousness. Questions like: what is food? Beyond the physical reality, like light and energy. Recently she is involved in the transition movement: how local food production and urban gardening can contribute in creating sustainable and resilient communities.

 Read articles published by the Dutch Coordinator: