TFF@BXL asks students to help feed the world!
Earlier this week, Thought for Food (TFF) held its inaugural summit in Brussels. TFF is a movement that aims to challenge university students to develop creative action plans to build a sustainable and just food future. For its inauguration, TFF brought together a group of “creative mentors”, who have started social enterprises, are advocating for new policies and who are using social media to change the world.
Each speaker told their personal story, outlined what they do and gave ideas for how young people can get involved. Ellen Gustafson, the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the FEED Foundation, talked about the unsustainability and unfairness of the world’s food system which is causing both hunger and obesity. She called on participants to “Change Dinner!” as a means to changing this broken global system.
Our own Alexander Woollcombe, ONE’s Acting Brussels Director, screened two videos: a Living Proof video showing the incredible progress that have been made in development and the The F Word: Famine is the Real Obscenity, a campaign ONE launched to fight famine in the horn of Africa.
Audrey Matthias and Zach Goodwin, from Creative Strategist, talked about the potential of new media and online technologies to bring about changes in the offline world . Participants also learned more about the virtue of camel milk with Sebastian Lindstrom, Co-founder/Producer of the What Took You So Long Foundation, and had the chance to taste it. All the speakers shared inspiring stories and encouraged participants to do what they are good at to change the world and start early.
In the afternoon, participants and mentors brainstormed and pledged to make a positive difference and contribute to feed the planet. Participants made various individual pledges from shopping and eating more sustainably to raising friends’ awareness, from making videos about that issue to spreading the word on social media. ONE will be encouraging them to get involved in our exciting forthcoming agriculture campaign.
Tweeters saw #TFFpledge and @TFFChallenge repeatedly showing up on their Twitter feeds on that day. Everybody went home inspired and committed to do something to contribute to reinvent our food production and consumption systems to feed the two billion extra mouths to come in the next decades.
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The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
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03/04/2012 at 3:17 am
As a member of One.org, I have read this, and this is the most wonderful thing! I am a student and I know, also, what poverty is, myself in a Southern state in the United States of America. We must not only contribute locally to families and persons in need who may be holding signs on the side of the road, but to the organizations which feed them! Thank you, ONE, for just being there!!!