Although young people have little opportunity to make their voices heard, they are willing to shape their cities' future. An alliance of local authorities, within the EU-funded Food Wave project, has put youth participation in the limelight, with the aim of empowering its role as changemakers. The workshop will focus on a format developed during the project to promote young people's participation while promoting community engagement on the themes of food, climate change and sustainability.
- Urban | EU/ European | International | Climate and environment | Sustainable | Governance and Public administration | Food | Youth and citizens engagement
- Code: 11WS23176
Speakers
Moderator
Practical information
- When
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Wed 11/10/2023, 11:30 - 12:30 CET
- Format
- Workshop
- Theme
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Promoting social innovation
- Language
- English
- Website
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https://foodwave.eu/
- Social media
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Food Wave Project
@foodwaveproject
Reporting
Session summary
The workshop focused on community engagement with regards to food and climate change through young people’s participation, starting from the experience of Food Wave project.
Food Wave is an EU-funded project led by the Municipality of Milan and implemented by a 28-partner wide partnership, which includes European LAs, NGOs and the Municipality of São Paulo. The aim is to promote young people’s action towards a sustainable food system, through inviting them to take action in their cities, involve their communities and take an active part in institutional decisions, in order to reach the goal of a sustainable food system by 2030.
The key messages of the event were:
• fostering cooperation between local authorities and civil society is necessary for the social, political and economic development of communities
• importance of supporting young people’s participation in shaping the future of their cities, first of all for what concerns sustainability
• to create an alliance between institutions and young people is the most effective way to involve them in a participative process
• Food Wave project has developed a participation model, based on street actions co-created by young people to promote awareness on the food and climate nexus, that can be replicated by other cities
• First step to engage young people in a dialogue with local authorities is reaching out to entities and associations already working with – or made by – young people
• Second tip is to use a type of communication close to young people’s habits, such as on social media and with influencers
• To promote a more sustainable food consumption and production, young people should start from awareness-raising
• Promotion initiatives co-created by young people and LAs should include interactive activities, in order to engage the local community on sustainability themes
• Examples of initiatives co-created by young people’s associations and Las can be: sustainable cooking courses; “green walks” to discover edible plants in neighbourhoods; local vegetables festivals; informal talks by young people in the public space….
Quotes
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Our goal? A new alliance between Policy makers, activists, young people, local communities for shaping a different perspective for urban growth.Giving the floor to young people implies accepting to be surprised, and we are ready!
I think that it is very important first to approach the associations and organizations of the territory not from the top-down and have a co-creation approach in the organization of your activities, understanding their needs and giving them a follow up.
For us, it was really important to have in the organisational team several enthusiastic young people, some of whom, previously trained on the topic of food and climate change, within the project’s summer school.
look at relevant study programmes, NGO’s and organisations that work on the topic), and give them the network and opportunities that they need to build on the movement. We started it in Almere, but it’s far from finished
