Food Power hosts workshop on engaging experts by experience at City Food Symposium
Ben Pearson, Food Power's Empowerment Programme Officer, co-facilitated a session with two young people to help participants explore a variety of sustainable and effective approaches to working with people who have a live experience of food poverty.
On Wednesday 25th April, the Food Power team attended City University's Food Symposium, which this year had a theme of involving and empowering people with lived experience. The symposium opened with a wide range of speakers sharing their learning from both UK and international projects and during the afternoon individuals working in the field ran workshops exploring how to gather and translate the evidence of lived experience.
Ben Pearson, the Empowerment Programme Officer for Food Power, led a workshop titled ‘Empowering people in food poverty’, which was co-facilitated by Charlotte and Corey, two young experts from Darwen Aldridge Enterprise Studio, who are members of the Blackburn with Darwen Food Partnership.
With over thirty participants from a wide range of backgrounds, and from as far afield as Columbia and Holland, the workshop explored empowerment and influence and used a range of interactive activities to discover differing approaches and methodology to involving those with lived experience of food poverty. The workshop offered participants with a good understanding of the importance of empowering and involving experts by experience, crucial to informing effective long term, sustainable and tailored solutions to tackling food poverty.
As Ben Pearson described it, "Three hours flew by, with a wealth of discussion which will help inform the development and design of our Food Poverty Empowerment Ladder. Charlotte and Corey brought valuable insight to the conversation, sharing learning from the Empowerment Exchanges they continue to facilitate with young people in Blackburn with Darwen."
Feedback from the participants was positive as Lucy Antal, Project Manager at Regional Food Economy NW, said, "‘A thoughtful and thought provoking workshop on empowering people in food poverty. Made especially relevant by the contributions made to the discussions from the young people at DAE studio."
Read more about Food Power's work on tackling the root causes of food poverty and supporting local alliances to engage those with lived experience.
Published Monday 30 April 2018
Food Power: Food Power is an exciting new programme working with local communities across the UK to strengthen their ability to reduce food poverty.
