Young Pacific people are paving the way for healthy, sustainable food futures

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research has awarded the Faculty of Education $2.9 million for a capacity-building project focused on local food environments in Fiji and the Solomon Islands. The purpose of this project is to empower Pacific young people to contribute to food environment change by co-creating strategic policy briefs to transform their local food environments. Young people from Fiji and the Solomon Islands will analyse their local food ecosystems through a number of citizen science projects before participating in a series of systems mapping workshops to co-design a list of strategic actions based on their collective findings. These strategic action plans will be presented to local decision-makers for implementation through youth-led exhibitions and advocacy forums.

The project lead is Associate Professor Deana Leahy (Faculty of Education). The team comprises Monash academics from Education, Arts, MADA and MNHS as well as team members from the CSIRO, University of Adelaide, Deakin University, QUT and University of the Sunshine Coast. This is a four-year project commencing in July 2023.