- Saturday July 25, 2020
- 10.30 - 11.00
Madras Cafe Unlocked 2020: ChangeKitchen: cooking and Campaigning for Food Justice
– – –
Jai Jagat 2020 UK is really pleased to present this short film as part of the Madras Café Unlocked exhibition focusing on Jai Jagat 2020. It was made with ChangeKitchen, based in Birmingham, UK, as a tool for discussion about the place of food in tackling climate change, and issues of food security, especially where they reveal material poverty and inequality.
Birgit Kehrer talks about her personal route to setting up ChangeKitchen as a social enterprise in response to the challenges that people with low incomes, and those who experience social exclusion, have in feeding themselves healthy food, and in finding stable employment. ChangeKitchen’s mission is to be ‘part of a revolution that turns access to healthy eating away from a privilege to a right for everyone’, and this philosophy is a good fit for Jai Jagat 2020 UK.
ChangeKitchen is celebrating its tenth year at a time when the food system in the UK has been shown to lack resilience in times of crisis with its highly-processed, over-packaged, bottom line accounting, just in time production and distribution. We find Birgit and her Kitchen Manager, Tommy Randa at a temporary kitchen, set up to cook and distribute thousands of vegan and vegetarian hot meals and food parcels to isolated and shielding people, and families who are reliant on food banks. Birgit discusses where the experiences of the Covid-19 crisis point their company.
Jai Jagat 2020 is a Global Peace walk from Delhi to Geneva to present the countries of the United Nations with the challenge to implement their 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which provide a basis for social and economic Justice along with the conditions for Peace.
As Jai Jagat 2020 UK, we are a group of activists based in the West Midlands with the input of individuals and NGOs around the UK, and we have been collaborating with organisations in eight European countries that support Jai Jagat 2020. One of Jai Jagat’s aims is to engage with local communities and build advocacy for a global movement of nonviolent reform that implements four pillars: eradicating poverty, stopping social discrimination, mitigating the climate crisis and reducing war and conflict.
Jai Jagat 2020 UK focuses on Climate Justice issues through these actions:
To highlight the issues of Food Justice and Food Sovereignty, relating, in particular, to the work of ChangeKitchen. Their Covid-19 relief activity provided hot meals and food parcels to vulnerable people in Birmingham using FareShare’s stocks of surplus and waste in our supply chains, and has given ChangeKitchen increased impetus to campaign on Food Justice issues.
To advocate peaceful solutions to the Climate Emergency within the city of Birmingham and wider West Midlands Combined Authority. We are working with partners such as the Peace Hub, Quakers and Footsteps, holding conferences and workshops. The Jai Jagat 2020 campaign has brought an international perspective to the common need to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2030 to build a sustainable future for our planet.
Jai Jagat’s 50 international walkers reached Armenia when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, but they hope to resume next spring. In the meantime, Jai Jagat lives online through webinars and forums. On Saturday 26 September there is an international meal of solidarity which anyone can sign up to, and on Friday 2 October we will celebrate the end of Phase 1 of this campaign to coincide with Gandhi’s 151st Anniversary, and start mapping out the route forward towards 2030 and continuing the campaign for Justice and Peace.
If you are enjoying our online events and would like to support our Partners in India, you can donate to Madras Cafe Unlocked.
About Madras Café Unlocked
As a result of COVID-19, WOMAD festival 2020 has been cancelled which has a huge impact on Madras Café and AVI. This is normally a key fundraising event and opportunity to raise awareness about AVI’s solidarity with rural communities across India. Our re-imagined event, Madras Café Unlocked brings you a summer of online content in support of Action Village India and partners. We launch our five ‘stages’: Madras Café Family, Madras Boombox, Food for Thought, Partnerships & Solidarity and our Exhibition: Food for Justice and Peace on the 24th, 25th & 26th of July and events will run throughout the summer up to 26th September, when we conclude with an International meal in support of Jai Jagat 2020.
Please visit our website www.madrascafeunlocked.co.uk for more information.
Further links:
Info
