Cloughmills Community Action Team helps tackle food poverty

Georgina Buffini, Healthy Food for All (centre left) and Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, safefood (centre right) congratulate Patrick Frew, Jim Whitten and Declan Donnelly from Cloughmills Community Action Team, Cloughmills after safefood announced that the County Antrim community organisation is to be one of nine all island projects to receive funding for the Community Food Initiatives Programme 2013-15.

Funded by safefood, the Programme aims to support Community projects in promoting greater access and availability of affordable, healthy food.

The Cloughmills Community Action Team’s ‘Incredible Edible’ Project will receive up to £35,000 over the next three years to promote greater access and availability of affordable, healthy food.

The project aims to develop a sustainable, fair and healthy food system in the local community through skills-based food education and cooking programmes, reduce the impact of food poverty and improve diet-related health in the community.

Speaking at the official launch event in Belfast, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, Director, Human Health & Nutrition, safefood said: “The ‘Incredible Edible’ project is an excellent example of how local communities can work together to overcome some of the problems they face in accessing healthy, affordable food.

“The health effects of food poverty range from difficulties in concentration and poor energy levels in children, to wellbeing issues in everyday life for adults and higher rates of diet-related chronic diseases in later life.

“By funding community food projects that offer real and practical support for people, we can help develop lifelong skills and knowledge of healthy, nutritious food, and promote positive attitudes to food and diet in the community and foster a new approach to tackling food poverty on the island.”

The programme of funding will be managed at a local level by Healthy Food for All, an all-island multi-agency initiative seeking to promote healthy food for low-income groups.

Ms Marjo Moonen, Chair of Healthy Food for All, explains: “The core aim of our work is to end food poverty on the island of Ireland. As such, it is vitally important that we help make these Community Food Initiatives work locally.

“We understand the common issues that these projects face and can draw on our expertise from working at policy level and from managing the Demonstration Programme of Community Food Initiatives 2010-12, from our wide network base, to assist them.

“We want to use work with these Community Food Initiatives to inform future developments; creating successful and sustainable models to ensure healthy and affordable food is ultimately available to everyone.”