This article covers:
How Italian communities fight food poverty through strong collaboration and inclusive support.
Real examples from Bologna showing how volunteers, charities, and municipalities work together.
Why inclusion and dignity are essential for effective food poverty solutions.
At the beginning of our journey, when we were about to listen to a dozen greetings and introductions of other delegations we were laughing about how many times we’ll hear the well-known phrase „we don’t leave anyone behind”. As it turned out, just a very few of the speeches included these words, meanwhile the methods we experienced there put this slogan into practice without doubts. But who are these people who are not left behind? For who and with whom works an Italian municipality against food poverty? Let’s examine it through 3 examples.
To provide food for the people in need by food donations you need basically 2 things: the food and hungry people. However, there’s a lot more here. From when you will get the necessary amount of food, how you will find the ones who need these packages and who will hand out those? So the collaboration which makes the whole donation possible is between companies and supermarkets, who are the „suppliers” in this case, the municipality or any social services. who access the needy according to a detailed database. And of course we need motivated organizers and volunteers, who run the project from the ordering until the cleaning ups. An example for a program like this is the regular food donation of the Caritas in Pieve di Cento, where nearly 400 individuals are supplied with non-perishable food on a weekly basis.
If we dive more into the question of the volunteers we will find that the included helpers’ age, gender and abilities are totally different. There are high school or university students, middle aged working people, just as city councellors or retired grannies. But the tasks differ from each other as well. There should be promoters of the initiative, who negotiate with the stakeholders, who are on site to serve or cook. Here I have to highlight a specific case, which is the mission of the Cooperativa Sociale Anima (Cooperative Social Soul), a restaurant where most of the employees are disabled people. They were the waitresses/waiters or cooks. We really enjoyed their company, they were very kind to us and we could make them smile so easily by just saying a „grazie”.
Last but not least, we have to talk about the people in need. Well, everyone was welcomed. Regardless of age, nationality, gender or religion. As a Metropolitan Council member mentioned, in a lot of cases you can’t tell about a person if they suffer from food poverty because they have a house, nice clothes so the problem is not visible on the surface. Moreover, they don’t want it to be obvious because of the sense of shame. So also here the circle of clients are very diverse. The best examples for this inclusive care are the Cucine Popolari which serve hot lunches every day for everyone who goes to them. They have these kitchens in 4 of the 6 districts of Bologna now and the founders are planning to open 2 more. The one we visited had the feeling of a „safe place”. Next to the national flag there was the LGBTQ+ and the Palestinian flag as well, and everything was written in Arabic as well. They, just as the other charity organizations we met, provide a vegan or halal option too in order to make everyone comfortable and able to eat.
Now we can see that it’s possible to include everybody in projects against food insecurity and pay attention to everyone’s needs. What we need is to think of the others as human beings not seeing their origins, worldview, sexuality or religion.
After I experienced all this I’m so inspired and emotional by this mentality we saw in Italy. It encourages me to think more open-minded, collaborate with the other groups and it confirms my opinion that beyond nice words we can really create something valuable where we indeed „Don’t leave anyone behind”.
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Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The following roles are currently available:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The following roles are currently available:
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Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications required, however, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
The role consists of:
Location: This role can be done in Budapest (Hungary) or remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Qualifications: No formal qualifications are required. However, the candidate should have previous demonstrable experience.
Skills and requirements:
