Action teams of several Slovak Ecoschools decided to change the cooking habits in their canteens and cafeterias, and even establish new cafés in their schools – because they realized that just to talk about the problems is not enough.
Would you like to have a cup of Fairtrade coffee or a tea?
In general, coffee is vital for many stressed teachers and chocolate is really popular among students. The action team of Elementary school Karpatská in Žilina wanted their teachers and classmates to get to understand the real costs of their morning cup of coffee, tea or a chocolate bar, by learning about it’s production. It is especially important to learn about alternatives of production, that respect natural environment and contribute to well being of people growing and processing them.
Meaningful conversation over cup of tea
Inspired by the concept of Fair trade, the team decided to open a fair trade café for parents and school staff. Situated next to the entrance to the school, the fair trade cafe is welcoming visitors and attracting attention of the students and teachers. While having your fairtrade tea, coffee or a sweets ready for you, you can learn about what fair trade means, by students explaining the conditions of coffee and chocolate production, glimpse of possibilities to change this situation as well as places where you can find more about the topic and buy fair trade products.
Zero Waste Week
How to change the mounting food waste at the school level? Inspiring example of change happened in the Elementary school in Nová Dubnica reducing food waste by 50%. The local action team have discovered that their school was producing food waste at the level of school canteen because kids were during the breaks throwing away their home snacks. In order to reverse this unfavourable trend, they decided to take action and organize a Zero Waste Week. Firstly, they discussed this idea with the cooks and came up with a very simple but brilliant solution. Students and teachers could vote from a list of five options for one meal they would like to have for lunch. The following day, the school cooks prepared the most preferred option. Only by this single, simple change they managed to reach a reduction of food waste by 50%!
Second part in this change payed boxes at the school halls for surplus snacks.
The boxes for surplus snacks were placed at the school halls so students could put in their surplus snacks and those who were still hungry could take them. When they started to use those boxes, many of those unwanted apples, sandwiches, biscuits and so on appeared in the boxes with the aim of being shared.
A lots of other Ecoschools from the Eat Responsibly project managed to reduce food waste and change the operations in their canteens. How? The local action teams simply talked to the fellow students to understand what exactly they wanted to eat and discussed with the cooks which ingredients they use, what type of food is being cooked and therefore, tried to find better alternatives for the canteens together.
