 Partners Meeting Athens, 1-2 December 2006
On 1-2 December 2006 the meeting of the partners of the “Mediterranean Food Educational Project” took place at MIO-ECSDE offices in Athens. The meeting had objectives on one hand to discuss the developments of the project, including timetable, activities, logistics, partners˘ tasks, etc. and on the other hand, to elaborate the draft material on "Mediterranean food" regarding its objectives, content, structure, pedagogical methodology, etc. The overall project is an Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) granted project. It was approved by its first Call for proposals (February 2006) under the Thematic Priority: "EuroMed Schools Programme”. The partner organizations involved are: AOYE –EGYPT, Legambiente – ITALY, LHAP- JORDAN, CMEPE –MOROCCO, ETNIA- PORTUGAL, APNEK- TUNISIA and MIO-ESCDE that is the leader & coordinator.
The main objective of the project is the development of a material for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on “Mediterranean Food” through a cooperative and participatory process and involving people from seven Mediterranean countries, members of EU and non-members. The educational material will be used as a vehicle for stimulating and promoting intercultural dialogue, thus at a second phase, it will be implemented by selected schools at a pilot basis (for a short-time period) in all partner countries. Furthermore, the project aims at promoting multi-linguism in the region and therefore, its main products will be translated in all (seven) national languages of the partners. The ultimate goal of the programme is the support of educational projects developing the values of intercultural dialogue, sustainability and peace.
As Prof. Scoullos, MIO-ECSDE Chairman, underlined “food” was chosen as the project˘s topic because food is (i) an area with almost no conflicts and in which nothing was developed “isolated” (ii) a field where we can understand the evolution of nutrition habits linked to economic development and socio-cultural attitudes (iii) an ideal theme within the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), particularly in the Mediterranean region, exploring the connection of food production with landscape and environmental resources as well as the connection between cultural and biological diversity (iv) a theme that provides the opportunity to study the linkages of Mediterranean diet and nutrition and consumption choices.
The first day of the meeting the overall Project was presented, with details on the partners˘ tasks and obligations in each activity, and discussed by the partners. The main topics that were raised and discussed concerning the ways of introducing the finalised material to educators and integrate it into school curricula, ways and criteria for selection of schools and teachers to be involved in the project, duration of each project˘s task and timetable, ways of promoting the project˘s visibility.
The second day was devoted to the elaboration of the draft material in terms of goals and objectives, pedagogical principles, structure and content, underlying that it is about a flexible material, open to teachers input and adjustable to students˘ age, level, and interest. The material is addressed to 11-15 years old students and it was decided to include three main parts:
- the Introductory Part including in brief information on ESD concept and approaches, the goals and educational objectives, the pedagogical approaches, description of contents and ways to implement it.
- the Background Documents to support and provide more material for activities divided in three chapters: (i) “Evolution of food and nutrition in the Mediterranean from the antiquity to our days” (ii) “Food, biodiversity and the Mediterranean landscape” and (iii) “The Mediterranean diet”.
- the Activities Part, including approximately 25 activities divided in three sections: “Typical Mediterranean foodstuff”, “The Mediterranean cuisine ritual”, and “Mediterranean diet & modern consumers”.
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