This column is the opinion of Miriam Banky, an advocate and educator.For more information CBC Opinion Section,please look at Frequently Asked Questions..
Looking back at the beginning of my nutrition career, teaching people the proper internal temperatures for cooking chicken and how to read nutrition labels will somehow free them from their food insecurity. I was convinced that I would.
Looking back, you can see how wrong you were. There is a myth that low-income earners should lack skills and resilience, but I quickly realized that the ones I “teach” were lacking.
I remember one of the early food skill classes I taught. It was a typical frosty February Calgary morning. The lesson of the day was about healthy recipe changes: how to cut meat and use more affordable protein. I was making a lentil shepherd’s pie topped with potatoes and cauliflower.
Participants began to arrive as the oven was preheated and the windows began to freeze. They threw huge hoodies and mittens on old leather sofas, unleashed the children, and the quiet room quickly turned into a space full of laughter and greetings.
After using public transport, 12 classmates talked about frosty commuting and about family recipes they plan to teach the following week. Bethrat talked to the group about Injera (delicious Ethiopian bread), and Ade piped her recipe for a very nice peanut stew on a cold day like today.
The group shouted out and shared the excitement.
I looked around the room in awe. I was amazed at these exciting people who froze across the city to build friendships and share skills. Did they really need my Shepherd’s pie?
These women already had great dietary skills and were budgeting experts. What they didn’t have was money and fair financial opportunities.
The Emergency Food Assistance Department will elaborate on different approaches to dealing with food insecurity. We are suffering from tensions between dealing with urgent needs and addressing the root cause. But these are either / or not a problem. You need to do both.
I’m thinking a lot about Nicksole’s wise words and call for action, head of the Canadian Community Food Center. It’s a very important difference to distinguish between hunger and poverty, as we start talking about public policy and then the basic human rights to food when we consider the problem to be poverty. “
According to Statistics Canada, more than one in seven Canadians have a hard time putting food on the table, which is a conservative estimate.
This is a strict statistic. And if you look around, you can see how motivated people can help you by looking at your neighbors in need. To address this, we cater to the urgent needs of hunger with hot meals, lunch boxes, hampers, accessible community refrigerators, and food drives.
Thanks for the recent $ 10 a day childcare announcement.-Miriam Banky
However, this support must be done with dignity. They are true experts in their lives. We need to ask our neighbors what they want and if they want them to come with us.
As a community, we must advocate change, make a fuss about the issues of poverty and food insecurity, and connect those stories to public discourse.
It’s been more than a decade since I started working in Calgary’s non-profit food sector, and I always remember that my misunderstandings about what people need weren’t as much as my thoughts about poverty.
People are not experiencing food insecurity, either because of the need for budgetary assistance or because of inadequate lifestyle choices. People are struggling with low wages, inadequate social assistance rates, affordable housing and childcare. We know that single parents and low-income women are experiencing disproportionate food insecurity, so we appreciate the recent announcement of $ 10 a day in childcare.
This is not a problem of “they”, but a problem of “us”. Together, we can work towards a collective end goal. We are committed to building a strong, vibrant and charitable community in the city, a world where everyone has fair access to nutritious, safe and culturally relevant food.
I started my career thinking that a food skills class could solve my hunger. Food skills classes may connect us, but only income-based policy solutions solve food insecurity.
CBC Calgary: High cost of food
This season, CBC Calgary understands the gaps in Calgary’s food system, shares tips for saving money, and documents how high food costs are changing the way we eat and shop. I am aiming to become a product. Follow and help by adding your mobile number.
You can unsubscribe at any time. Please read the details.
