Awareness

“Raising awareness is the key and getting people to ask the right questions - only they can decide what they do from there.”

When our group for the Social Action Project in our School and Society class got together, there was no doubt in our minds that the issue of supporting local farmers and promoting local food was an important one. In our discussions, we debated the best possible method to use our project to make a positive contribution to society around us. To begin with, Toronto already has many wonderful organizations with established farming initiatives with education divisions in their organizations.

Additionally, the first localicious festival was taking place in specific restaurants across Canada during the first week that our group coalesced. We concluded that the greatest contribution we could make was one of increasing awareness in our own community at OISE on the importance and ease of obtaining local food and of supporting neighbourhood farmers.

In my own web-searching for my first blog entry, I was amazed to learn that U of T was having a week-long event devoted to different aspects of world foods THIS WEEK! I was excited by this event, but disappointed when I realized most of the key features of the week had passed. I was astounded that there was an event, with similar intentions to ours, occurring at the University level that was beyond the realization of all the members of our group. I know that I receive, and usually skim through, the weekly U of T bulletin, but don’t remember seeing anything related to “world food week” advertised. I would definitely have made an effort to attend at least one event, but now I am left with the feeling “If I only knew…”. Where was this week advertised? I came across the link while I happened to be on the website http://www.localfoodplus.ca/. If a group of students actively interested in the social issue of local food could not hear about this event, then how did others? I’m sure the event was successful and benefited the University community as a whole, but why was it not publicized more thoroughly? This experience leads me to the conclusion that we were justified in promoting awareness as our main goal.

Awareness is important concerning local food itself, but also around efforts to make a difference and publicizing action groups like ours. As we continue with our blog, and the preparation for our panel discussion, I hope we can bring the support of local farmers to a conscious level for our community at OISE, with the hope that our ideas will continue to spread through the use of our colleagues as future teachers. Hopefully, our readers and workshop attendees can have a similar reaction to my “If I only knew…” about issues of local food and be motivated to change their practices. Recognition is the first step to any change. If people leave our event thinking about their actions, and if, as they look to purchase their next bag of apples, they choose the bag from Waterloo, Ontario, instead of from the United States, then we will have begun to make a difference.