“Gandhi is the other person. I believe Gandhi is the only person who knew about real democracy — not democracy as the right to go and buy what you want, but democracy as the responsibility to be accountable to everyone around you. Democracy begins with freedom from hunger, freedom from unemployment, freedom from fear, and freedom from hatred. To me, those are the real freedoms on the basis of which good human societies are based.” ~ Vandana Shiva
Last month, we featured Deirdre Goudriaan and Silvia Di Blasio, this month, we will be featuring Fiona Stevenson and her amazing team at DIVERSECity, one of the agencies doing the most around food security in Surrey.
Fiona is the Manager of Volunteer & Community Programs at DIVERSECity and her team includes heroes and heroines who work organizing, leading and facilitating community gardens, community kitchens and a wide variety of food security events and workshops.
Fiona’s interview:
Tell us a bit how you became involved in SOCS and/or the FAC:
As manager of Volunteer and Community Programs, I oversee our food security programs that include long running community kitchens and community gardens for new immigrant and refugees who can be especially susceptible to food insecurity for a range of complex cultural, linguistic, systemic and income and resource related barriers.
What is your best comfort food?
A Chilean dish (my husband’s from Chile!) called Pastel De Choclo- it’s like a pie made of ground beef, eggs, chicken, olives topped with ground sweetcorn,
Do you have meals you like to cook from scratch?
Any random one pot dish made with leftovers from the fridge!
If you had a magic wand, what single change would you implement to make communities more food secure?
Ensure that cultural, religious and community lens and considerations are brought to the discussions of how to make communities more food secure- food is an integral way to how we relate to each other and build connections.
What would be a question you would ask your local representatives in relation to food security?
How can we ensure food security discussions go hand in hand with living wage discussions? Income is the biggest systemic barrier.
If you can give an advice about food security to our readers, what would that be?
Listen directly to those who are food insecure. It’s so much more than just teaching cooking skills or being able to access regular healthy veggies.
Way to go, Fiona!
We would like to see more people featured! We know there are many amazing community leaders, some teaching, some sharing, some organizing, others advocating, writing policy and looking for funds to make things happen, but as Fiona says, the true food security leaders come from the groups and communities that are currently food insecure: they are the true experts, heroes and heroines who need their voices to be heard, their stories to be told.
Because food security is deeply linked to social justice and inclusion, let’s listen!
“Living democracy grows like a tree, from the bottom up.”
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