CAPs Friday 30/4/10

Read about Alice’s CAP!

SOUTHEAST YOUTH FOOD ACTIVIST SUMMIT – ALICE YEN
Alice Yen is a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar at Duke University.

 

On February 5-7, 2010, the Real Food Challenge hosted the Southeast Youth Food Activist Summit (SYFAS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, just a bus ride away from Duke University. Over a hundred and fifty students and young people from Maryland to Florida traveled through ice, snow, and rain to learn about sustainable food issues, engage in activist and leadership trainings, and build a youth movement toward a just and sustainable food system. Sixteen workshops and speaker panels led by NGO professionals, sustainable agriculture researchers, professors, worker union organizers, farmers, and students explored a variety of complicated issues related to food.

 

Author/activist Anna Lappé from the Small Planet Institute delivered an inspiring Keynote Address on the effects of our current industrial food system on climate change and personal health and the importance of the youth food movement for creating a more socially just and environmentally sustainable Real Food economy.

 

SYFAS 2010 emphasized several themes integral to the youth food movement including youth empowerment, equal access to Real Food, and social justice issues relating to food production. Access to affordable, safe, nutritious food should be a right, not a privilege. As young leaders of this region/nation/world, we have the right and responsibility to co-create a food system that is just, healthy, and sustainable for all. Beginning with SYFAS, The Real Food Challenge hopes to grow the youth movement for Real Food and cultivate responsible and sustainable eating and dining practices in colleges, universities, and high schools across the United States.

 

Alice