Projecte Alimenta, community kitchens and food workshops to get away from welfarism

admin on 23 September 2021

Image from the Ajuntament de Barcelona website.

A programme to escape from the welfare-based approach to food aid. It offers community kitchens and workshops where people who receive food can also learn how to optimize their food, prepare healthy dishes and extend food preservation. This promotes the right to decent, sustainable and healthy food among people in a situation of food vulnerability.

Each Espai Alimenta is located in a different area of the city and managed by a social organization. The aim is not only to offer a space to meet needs, but the programme also seeks to enable people in need of food aid to create a community bond and exchange knowledge.

Characteristics of innovation

Bank of innovations, Fully inclusive cities, Group intervention, Lab, Link with the community, New model of intervention, Pilot project, Poverty and exclusion, Prediction and prevention, Self-management and participation

Location

Barcelona

Partners/Funders

Ajuntament de Barcelona, Fundació Privada Jovent, Menjador Solidari Gregal, Fundació Roure, cooperativa Impulsem.

Genesis

The social emergency resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic forced the authorities to increase food and shelter services for people in vulnerable situations. In Barcelona, the high demand for food led to long queues of people waiting at the doors of municipal services and social organisations.

With the aim of “escaping from the welfare system”, according to the people in charge of the project, the spaces of Projecte Alimenta want to offer a more empowering model, which gives aids to people in a situation of food vulnerability.

Level of implementation

The City Council’s initial forecast is that 25 people will participate in each of these workshops. The initial investment in the programme is 275,000 euros.

Further information