Respect for the people and the planet through the We Eat Responsibly project
The 2015-16 School Year was an exceptional one for 163 Ecoschools from nine European countries that had the chance to participate in the We Eat Responsibly programme. More than 2,000 pupils and students had a unique opportunity to explore the interdependencies between themselves and the rest of the world and to gain motivation and skills to live more sustainably and fair towards people in the global South. More than 3,500 teachers participated and about 400 teachers were trained on responsible food consumption.
We Eat Responsibly is an EU action-oriented global learning programme aiming to develop critical thinking, knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable young students to adopt new consumption and behaviour patterns. It supports teachers in embedding responsible food consumption topics into their lessons and it motivates pupils’ and students’ activities for responsible changes at schools or in their neighbourhood. The programme aims also to raise awareness of parents and the school’s larger community about the global impacts of our everyday choices.
In the beginning of the school year, joint eco-teams of teachers and children from every school made a food review and distributed some questionnaires in their households. Based on this research, they chose one topic to be examined during the whole year (for example, palm oil, food waste, excessive meat consumption, local and seasonal food). Throughout the year eco-teams followed the Seven Steps methodology which is an approved strategy to help schools maximise their success.
By the end of the school year the schools organised action days where the eco-team informed students, teachers, parents and the broader community about the topic chosen. Even though it was the pilot year of the programme, many schools managed to create some very effective outputs.
“Our experience with responsible food consumption at schools shows that when we are thinking globally and acting locally, simply everyone can make a step towards solving some big challenges our world is facing, such as loss of agro biodiversity or even climate change,” says Tereza Čajková, the We Eat Responsibly project international coordinator.
Fourteen schools from Malta have successfully participated in the pilot year of the project. The themes being discussed include overconsumption, local food and seasonality, food wastage, reduction in meat consumption, diversity in food and the issue of processed food and palm oil. Students have been taking positive action by growing vegetable patches in the school gardens, meeting with local farmers, responsible shopping as well as preparing local and seasonal food at school, while using their own produce. A whole school approach was fostered in the school community by teachers integrating these topics within their curriculum, together with an effective outreach by promoting these principles within the community.