Working with Slow Food

Slow Food is a global, grassroots-led organisation, with supporters in 150 countries, who are committed to enjoying the pleasure of good food while respecting their community and the environment. Slow Food was founded in 1989 to challenge the rise of fast food and fast life.

It counters the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

Slow Food's approach to agriculture, food production and gastronomy incorporates three interconnected principles:

GOOD - a fresh and flavoursome seasonal diet that satisfies the senses and is part of our local culture;

CLEAN - food production and consumption that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health;

FAIR - accessible prices for consumers and fair conditions and pay for small-scale producers.

Today, Slow Food has more than 100,000 members in 1,300 ‘convivia’, or local chapters, worldwide, as well as a network of 2,000 food communities who practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality foods. Visit the Slow Food website for more information

Terra Madre

Slow Food’s most important project, Terra Madre, has become a global network of farmers, producers and food communities who believe in sustainable agriculture that respects the environment and uses natural resources with care.

Over the years, thanks in part to Terra Madre, thousands of farmers have strengthened their knowledge, improved production techniques and, most of all, increased their self-confidence. They have become aware of how, in their local area, they can promote sustainable agriculture, improve the quality of daily life, value and preserve traditional knowledge and develop local economies. Many of them live in countries where simply getting access to food is a daily struggle.

1000 Vegetable Gardens in Africa

In 2010 Terra Madre began a new project: to create a thousand vegetable gardens in Africa, in schools and villages and on the outskirts of cities. A vegetable garden means healthy, local food for the community, passing-on knowledge from the old to the young, and a reinforced spirit of collaboration.

In Africa, vegetable plots are an accessible source of healthy food and extra income for local com munities. Terra Madre gardens encourage an awareness of local plants and biodiversity, respect for the environment,  the sustainable use of soil and water and the safeguarding of traditional recipes.

Network for Africa & Slow Food

About Uganda

Network for Africa works with local partners in Patongo, Agago District, in the north east of Uganda, home to the Acholi people and an area devastated by conflict for over two decades.

Patongo hosted tens of thousands of refugees and was regularly raided by the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) during a war that lasted for 22 bloody years. Thousands were killed, millions were displaced, and the LRA abducted more than 50,000 children, forcing them to be soldiers, porters and sex slaves. Almost everyone was forced to abandon their farms to live in dismal and squalid refugee camps, where they have been for more than 20 years. The war stopped only recently and while many international NGOs have been and continue to be active in Gulu to the west, Patongo was largely neglected, as it was deemed to be too dangerous.

Working together

Network for Africa shares Slow Food’s aspiration to working with local communities to empower individuals to change their lives for the better, while respecting their local traditions. We are proud to collaborate with Slow Foods on the 1000 Vegetable Gardens project with our programmes in northern Uganda and Rwanda. We are working with local partners to create three gardens: a community garden for volunteer outreach counsellors; a garden for our women’s income generating group, Ribbe Aye Teko (Women Are Strong Together); and a school garden involving about 2,000 students. A community garden is also being planted by Aspire, a Network for Africa partner in Kiglai, Rwanda; it will involve about 150 women.

Watch this space for news of our gardens.

Support one of the garden projects!