Food Includes: reaching, recruiting and engaging excluded learners by harnessing the power of food

The importance of adult education in helping individuals adjust to a fast-changing society and labour market cannot be understated, particularly for vulnerable populations such as refugees and those affected by war in Ukraine.
Yet, as the demographics of our communities change around us, we are seeing that many individuals face barriers to education, be they cultural, psychological, gender or socioeconomic.
Inspired by Fundació Solidaritat’s(FSUB) work on the Social & Community Cuisine’ as a means to boost participation of disadvantaged people in university extension courses, and EUCEN’s work on proactive “seeking pedagogies” in adult education, we believe the
creation of short courses centred around food can better help us reach and engage adult learners, and help put them on new pathways to skills development.
FOOD INCLUDES aims to harness the power of food to create new flexible learning opportunities which foster greater inclusion and entry to upskilling pathways in adult education.
In order to achieve this, we have 4 main objectives:
1. Equip adult educators with the knowledge and skills to use food as an effective
“Aufsuchende Pädagogik” or seeking pedagogy to reach and engage hard-to-reach
adults in education.
2. Enable adult education organisations to quickly introduce food-based courses suitable
to their learners’ needs.
3. Implement the Food Includes approach to reach and teach learners, particularly
refugees, in 6 countries and evaluate improvements in accessibility, participation and
upskilling.
4. Encourage the sustainable use and evolution of the Food Includes approach in adult
education organisations.