During the last scholastic year, 14 local schools participated in We Eat Responsibly, an EU action-oriented global learning programme aiming to develop critical thinking, knowledge, skills and attitudes to help students adopt new consumption and behaviour patterns.

In total, 163 eco-schools from nine European countries took part, involving 2,000 pupils and students and more than 3,500 teachers. The participants explored the interdependencies between themselves and the rest of the world and gained motivation and skills to live more sustainably and fairly towards people in the global south.

About 400 teachers were trained on responsible food consumption, how to embed responsible food consumption topics in their lessons and integrate them in their curriculum, and how to motivate pupils and students to undertake activities for responsible changes at schools or in their neighbourhood. The programme also aims to raise awareness of parents and schools’ larger communities about the global impacts of their everyday choices.

At the start of the school year, eco-teams of teachers and children from every school conducted a food review and distributed questionnaires in their households. Based on this research, they chose topics to be examined during the year, such as overconsumption, local food and seasonality, food wastage, reduction in meat consumption, diversity in food and the issue of processed food and palm oil.

Students undertook various action such as growing vegetable patches in their school gardens, meeting local farmers, shopping responsibly, preparing local and seasonal food at school, and using their own produce.

The participants also conducted an outreach by promoting these principles in the broader community. At the end of the year the schools held action days during which the eco-team to pass on information to fellow students, teachers, parents about the topics chosen.