About the Ontario Edible Education Network
Cooking classes at The Stop CFC.
Vision
For all children and youth in Ontario to have healthy food environments, where they experience equal access to healthy and sustainably produced food and where food literacy is supported through a range of educational and hands-on activities.
Mission
To bring together individuals and groups in Ontario that are connecting children and youth with healthy food systems. The network seeks to better enable these champions to share resources, ideas, and experience, work together on advocacy, and facilitate efforts across the province to get children and youth eating, growing, cooking, celebrating, and learning about healthy, local and sustainably produced food.
Such champions may include not-for-profit organizations, public health units, farmers, teachers, administrators, food service employees, and many others.
Why we need this Network
New growth in the Farmers in the Playground gardens. Credit: Kelli Ebbs.
For many years educators, parents, and organizations across Ontario have undertaken important work to improve food environments for children and youth. Many others have wanted to initiate such efforts but have lacked the resources or the expertise.
The Ontario Edible Education Network developed out of the need for better coordination, information sharing, and advocacy among these individuals and groups to:
- Help students learn about good food practices (e.g., growing, preparing, cooking, and choosing healthy and sustainably produced food) that will improve their well-being now and in the future, and
- Affect processes and decisions within government and elsewhere that influence opportunities for people to build healthy food environments across Ontario.
More about the need for this network.
Values
As a network, we believe in:
- Equity – where all children and youth can access healthy, nutritious, and sustainable foods regardless of their socio-economic status, and where living wages for farmers and food providers are upheld within the local economy.
- Healthy food environments – that encourage children and youth to eat nutritious and nourishing whole foods.
- Sustainable food production – where food is produced, processed and delivered in ways that do not compromise the health and wellbeing of our people, place or planet. Within this we recognize the importance of protecting fertile farmland and increasing access to underutilized urban space for food growing.
- Diversity (i) of approaches – that recognize the existence of cultural differences within and between communities, and (ii) of representation, working toward an ever-increasing diverse and inclusive network.
Students make signature salads in a food literacy workshop with FoodShare Toronto. Credit: Laura Berman/GreenFuse Photography.
Goals
That all children and youth:
- Learn how to grow, prepare, preserve, and choose healthy and sustainably produced food.
- Have access to enough healthy, culturally appropriate food every day.
- Have a strong knowledge of the food system.
Which will enable them to make smart healthy choices, and carry these learned skills through life.
Read about our Network Activities to see how we’re working towards these goals.
Governance
The Ontario Edible Education Network is governed by three leadership bodies: the Steering Committee, the Advisory, and the Network Chair.
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