The solutions which we would like to promote within the project:
a. Food production that is based on healing the connection between people and the land, like (bio)organic agriculture, permaculture, which is a method of designing sustainable systems.
b. Food preparation
One of the emerging movements on food apart from vegetarian, vegan and other healthy diets is the living or rawfood movement. Wild, natural foods have these major nutrional value that modern food mostly misses. The shift from quantity to quality also brings a new light on the world food problem.
c. Sharing and eating of food
Urban agriculture, community based agriculture are forms of growing food in cities, often based on connecting people, creating additional values like community building. These new developments often have the co-effect of empowering people, breaking social isolation, creating multicultural integration, cross-generation integration, involving both elderly and young children. Often new small scale jobs are created in the field of producing or preparing the food. Growing food together, harvesting and preparing it and then eating and celebrating together is one of the strongest ways to create community, and to reach a broad ranch of groups in society that reflect a diverse ethnic, social and economic mix of Europe’s population and promotes diversity.
d. Education
An important part of this aspect of community based food production for teachers is developing social skills and learn new teaching techniques to work with groups and create learning environments. Pedagogical theories have evolved rapidly, based on recent developments in neuroscience and up-to-date understanding of educational psychology. New techniques in exchanging knowledge, communication, decision making, learning and working together are developed and needed. Sociocratic decision making, using collective intelligence, ‘fishbowl’, ‘open space’, ‘worldcafé’ are new techniques to promote cooperation and active involvement. ‘Action learning’ or ‘learning by doing’ are new developing learning techniques.
4. Why this project is needed?
With this project we aim to bring sustainable food initiatives from all parts of Europe together and learn from and with each other and bring both teaching qualities as insights in sustainable agriculture and healthy food to a new level of understanding and practice.
The project is needed because participants will stand out of their surroundings and visit examples which could be an example of good practise they will follow and support their creativity, spirit of enterprise, rise of self confidence, trust in society, care for nature, what they eat and consecutiveness, improve their health.
By engaging a wider community and making researches and share knowledge during the project period, we aim to better understand how to inspire and mobilize a greater number of citizens to improve their knowledge on the importance of health, food and sustainability and improve their skills and access to high quality food. We need to act now as a community of volunteers in partnership with others to help re-skill ourselves, pass these skills on and through that help make our society happier, healthier and more resilient.