On 12th July, over twenty-five delegates met at Vestry Hall, Mitcham, to take part in Merton’s Food Poverty Action Seminar, hosted by Sustainable Merton.
We were very lucky to have a great line up of speakers kick off the morning. Simon Shaw (Sustain), Viv Taylor (OLIO – the food sharing app), and Miguel Gonzalez (‘The Holiday Provision Fund’ sponsored by the Mayor’s Fund for London) got the session started with their very informative talks about why it is important to tackle food poverty, how to divert good food from going to waste, and funding to provide ‘Holiday Hunger’ relief.
Michael Wilson (Croydon Plus, formerly known as ‘Croydon, Merton and Sutton Credit Union’) got the second round of the morning off to a good start, with information about how to access our local credit union. Delegates then divided into groups to give their ideas about how we could tackle food poverty in the borough, who could help lead some of these ideas and who else we could get involved to help create a successful action plan.
Delegates included local residents, food bank clients and volunteers, local councillors, and representatives from Fare Share, One You and Health Watch Merton. Michelle Kolattek (Sustainable Merton) will spend the next few days collating all the feedback before sharing the data to enable a wider audience to add to their thoughts. All information we receive will help form part of Merton’s Food Poverty Action Plan, which will be completed by the autumn.
Congratulations to Sustainable Merton's Michelle for organising such an interesting seminar, on such an important issue. Everyone learnt something new!
Please get in touch to register your interest, if you haven’t already.
A big thank you to talented young photographer Terence for the great photos he captured for us as part of his work experience week.