Vocabulary

Accountability is the act required or expected of a person, organization, or institution to justify actions or decisions; to be responsible.
Action is the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim.
Agent of Change is one who is empowered to act for, or represent another, or one that acts or has the power or authority to act.
Education is the process of receiving or giving systemic instruction, especially at a school or university.
Involvement is the fact or condition of being involved with or participating in something.
Plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something; an intention or decision about what one is going to do.

Purpose - 
Food Advocacy

Picture
The 3-Step-Tool guided the child through the process of identifying a cause worth advocating for. Children then analyzed the situation and defined their involvement as an agent of change. In this sub-unit, children put into action their previous steps, analyze their action plan, and assess its outcomes. As a culmination to the food unit, children present how they went from learning about their right to food to advocating for this right for others.
Child Asks: How can I work with my community as an agent of change for the right to sufficient nutritious food?
Children's Rights Education: Enables the child to act responsibly in the implementation of the right to food for a community.
Child Answers: Accountability and education can help realize the right to food.

Classroom Learning Activities

1. Act to Realize the Right to Food
Students refer to the 3-Step-Tool to Empowerment to guide them as they put into action their advocacy goal/s to help a community realize its right to sufficient nourishing food. This includes the following process:
  1. Refer to the goal stated in the previous sub-unit, and determine the plan of action to reach this goal. "How am I going to reach this goal?" or "What do I need to do to reach this goal?" are some questions the children can ask.
  2. Analysis of the Plan: What are the supporting and inhibiting factors in reaching this goal?
  3. Assessment: Children determine how they will know that they have reached their goal. It is important that there be followup to make sure that, indeed, their goal/s have been realized.
  4. Presentation of Advocacy: It is important that children have the opportunity to present their project to others to inspire them to collaborate together to help realize the Convention's rights for every child.
Classroom 3-Step-Tool to Empowerment Material is available for purchase here.
Responsible behaviours guide the child when acting as an agent of change in pursuing the effective realization of the right to food.
Go here to purchase this poster.

2. Feeding 9 Billion: Introducing Solutions to the Global Food Crisis
By Dr. Even Fraser
Rising populations and the resources required to produce an increasingly rich diet are driving the demand for food up. When looking into the future, it is clear that we are going to have to come up with a global solution to this challenge to food security. However, there is a 4 part blueprint that we need to follow to ensure a food secure future for everyone. Since each of these are extremely controversial and require careful analysis. These include:
  1. Science and Technology - enable farmers to reach their potential in terms of the amount of food they produce = Developing local solutions to local challenges
  2. Distribution of Food - establish ways so that less food is wasted and more food is distributed = Access to short term food aid in times of crisis
  3. Local Food Systems - create a buffer between individual food consumers and problems that might occur in global markets = A critical line of defence against hunger
  4. Stronger Regulation and Proactive Government Policy - to promote more sustainable farming
Go to Feeding 9 Billion to learn more about how you can help feed the population of 2050.

Feeding 9 Billion
Feeding Nine Billion Video 1Brought to you by www.feedingninebillion.com...By 2050 there will be 9 billion people on the planet - but will there be enough food for everyone? Food security expert Dr Evan Fraser guides you through a whiteboard presentation of his solution to the Global Food Crisis.

3. View the movie Food, INC. by Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser

Easy Ways to Change the Food System
  1. Find organic, local foods - find out more at Eat Well Guide.
  2. Factory Farming - advocate for more humane conditions for animals, workers, and communities affected by feed-lot farming. Find out more at Humane Society.
  3. Pesticides - cause cancers, autism, and neurological disorders. Learn more about what pesticides are in your food and their effects at What's On My Food. 
  4. Environmental Impact - Did you know that the average food product travels about 1500 miles to get to your grocery store? Find out more at Cool Foods Campaign. 
Hungry for Change
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
Retrieved from Take Part - Food, INC.

Relevant Convention Articles

Article 6
1. States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.
2. States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.
Article 12
1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.
Article 13
1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.
2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
Article 14
1. States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
2. States parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.
3. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
Article 15
1. States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.
2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Article 24
1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services.
2. States Parties shall pursue full implementation of this right and, in particular, shall take appropriate measures:
(a) To diminish infant and child mortality;
(b) To ensure the provision of necessary medical assistance and health care to all children with emphasis on the development of primary health care;
(c) To combat disease and malnutrition, including within the framework of primary health care, through, inter alia, the application of readily available technology and through the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking-water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution;
(d) To ensure appropriate pre-natal and post-natal health care for mothers;
(e) To ensure that all segments of society, in particular parents and children, are informed, have access to education and are supported in the use of basic knowledge of child health and nutrition, the advantages of breastfeeding, hygiene and environmental sanitation and the prevention of accidents;
(f) To develop preventive health care, guidance for parents and family planning education and services.
3. States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.
4. States Parties undertake to promote and encourage international co-operation with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right recognized in the present article. In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries.

Online Resources and References