Food Justice Week (20th-26th June 2022)
Bristol’s first Food Justice Week brought together over 300 people to discuss the inequity in our food system and explore solutions collaboratively. Events took place in a variety of locations, raising awareness across the city of both the issues and the work being undertaken to reduce the negative impact of food inequality.
The week kicked off at City Hall, where the One City Food Equality Strategy was launched: a culmination of 18 months of work with over 80 organisations contributing to its creation. Events at Lawrence Weston, Easton, Windmill Hill and Knowle West followed, with local organisations co-hosting, bringing people together for food and discussion.
All the events were free to attend, and people had the opportunity to discuss the issues that they were experiencing on a city-wide, or locality basis. It gave people the chance to meet others from their communities who were wanting to make a difference and to listen to the problems others were facing, share ideas, and co-produce solutions. It was also an opportunity to hear from the organisations that were already working in the area, as well as highlighting some of the amazing work happening across the whole city, and the vision of food equality for the city.
It was a great week full of challenge and grounded in reality, whilst highlighting the potential of what we could achieve and beginning to lay the foundations for the Food Equality Action Plan. There is no doubt that we have a long way to go if we are going to achieve food justice – locally, nationally or globally – but events like these are the first steps to creating a shared vision and developing ways of working to achieve this goal.