Responding to Hunger: A toolkit for learning and actions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Responding to Hunger: A toolkit for learning and actions

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Right to Food is not usually seen as an issue impacting Europe. However, estimates show that some 43 million people in the EU cannot meet their basic food needs and 120 million, 1/4 of EU’s population, are at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Increased rates of poverty and inequality during the last decade, particularly after the economic crisis in 2008, have placed vulnerable groups at risk of food insecurity and social exclusion across Europe.

Human rights instruments and participatory methodologies are increasingly being utilized by social movements to develop solutions which address root causes of hunger and ensure that needs of persons often left out of statistics and policy discourses are made visible.

Objectives: This initiative seeks to utilize education and innovative methodologies to build capacity of European organizations working on issues related to hunger, food systems, and social diversity to address hunger, and promote human rights and social inclusion in their analysis, work, and advocacy:

1) Expand and strengthen the capacities of civil society organization to engage with institutional, legal, budgetary and policy frameworks at national and European levels;
2) Create innovative tools and methodologies to support building capacity of organizations and other actors working in the fields of food systems and hunger on strategies, which increase social inclusion and align with the RtFN;
3) Understand, and provide recommendations on how to better address issues of social diversity and hunger, using a RtFN methodology that will engage with these social and community differences, such as race, immigration status, gender, disability, and their intersectionalities.

Target groups: It is important to bring together actors with knowledge on RtFN, hunger, and poverty across NGOs, social movements, and academia in order to innovate new methods for training organizations, movements and students/academia in creating assessments at national and regional level in order to better engage with policy process. Social groups that are most vulnerable to food and nutrition insecurity as well as marginalization and social inclusion, and their representative organizations, are a key target group as well as participant in the project activities.

The project seeks to reach at least 400 diverse adult learners in person; at least 100 adult learners through the online space and courses; and several diverse CSOs and institutions through a strong communications and dissemination plan within international, EU-level, and national platforms.
The project activities will focus on the participatory creation of learning outputs on priority themes to the EU-region, including: 1) Legal and policy frameworks; 2) Responses to hunger; 3) Social inclusion; 4) Healthy environment and diets; 5) Participatory governance. Each output has a participatory approach, and will build into a digital toolkit (6), which includes a manual for utilizing these materials, methodologies, and pedagogical considerations when working with marginalized groups. Outputs and activities will utilize participatory and consultative methodologies, and depart from the national experiences of project partners to inform transnational outcomes.
inked to the objectives of the project, the main results/outcomes of the project include:

1) Increased outreach and participation of diverse civil society actors, and representative groups of those facing social exclusion in analysis of hunger and social inclusion
2) Increased availability of knowledge and training materials on responses to hunger available in diverse languages and available open access online
3) Strengthened analysis of hunger and social inclusion at national and regional-EU levels

As this project will focus on the creation of training and education materials, as well as creating the beginnings of a much longer process, thus some impacts are foreseen in the long-term, beyond the project period. Impact include:

-Improved understanding of how to connect and collaborate better with government actors and public servants on issues of hunger, food insecurity, and food systems at all levels
-Increased capacity of CSOs and other organizations to engaged in participatory, action-oriented approach to training and pedagogy for issues of food insecurity and hunger in Europe
-Shift in analysis of human rights organizations, as well as CSOs working on hunger, poverty, and food systems to analyze hunger in Europe, as well as inform strategic engagement with new partners, and inform strategies of engagement in community interventions and regional policy processes
-Increased awareness and use of strategies to increase social inclusion of marginalized persons and groups by policy makers, CSOs, and service providers in relation to issues impacting hunger and food security, and food systems at all levels.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 267907 Eur

Project Coordinator

FIAN INTERNATIONAL EV & Country: DE

Project Partners

• FIAN Portugal
• RESEAU INTERNATIONAL URGENCI
• FIAN Österreich – Internationale Menschenrechtsorganisation für das Recht auf Nahrung
• COVENTRY UNIVERSITY
• FIAN Belgium