ORIOLE FOOD SPACE

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unpacking...

GROWING RESILIENCE AND EQUITY

The pandemic is magnifying the structural inequalities in our food systems, the insufficiencies of our social protection programs, and the challenges with the dominant food supply chains. Food insecurity in Canada is expected to double from the most recent statistics of 4.4 million people, before the end of the year. In response, Food Secure Canada has published a policy action plan for renewing the country’s food system in response to Covid-19.
This moment clearly calls for visionary and bold structural change rather than piecemeal approaches based on the status quo. Food Secure Canada’s “Growing Resilience And Equity: A Food Policy Action Plan in the Context of Covid-19” charts a way forward, grounded in proposals developed through a process of information gathering, listening, consultation and convening with individuals and organizations involved in “food movements” (social movements advancing food-system transformation).

Food insecurity and COVID-19

Food Insecurity Policy Research - Valerie Tarasuk Professor -Department of Nutritional Sciences and Dalla Lana School of Public Health - University of Toronto

About OFS:

The Oriole Food Space is run by a partnership among North York Harvest Food Bank, Flemingdon Health Centre, and Working Women Community Centre. Although Food security was first identified as a priority in the Don Mills-Sheppard community in 2007, the Oriole Food Space (OFS) opened just in February 2013 and operates out of the Oriole Community Centre in the Don Mills-Sheppard neighbourhood, in Toronto.

Its mission of building a healthy community, together, through food was accomplished by designing and implementing a variety of food-related programs for people from the diverse ethno-cultural groups represented in the Don Mills-Sheppard community.

In addition to providing emergency food access at the food bank, the OFS started to build a sense of community by creating the community kitchens, integrating the Peanut garden, and highlighting systemic issues around food security, such as poverty, affordable housing, and social justice.

An evaluation of the OFS conducted in 2015 indicated that there was an opportunity to scale up this initiative to more effectively bring together diverse groups to shape their community and reduce social isolation by using food as a platform for engagement and social action on issues related to food security and poverty. The current phase of the Food Security project, launched in spring 2017, focuses on the expansion and strengthening of the Oriole Food Space. We are doing this by:

Increasing resident access to affordable food options and ideas such as gardens, kitchen, farming, food markets,
Creating welcoming and respectful food access points, including more welcoming food bank programming;
Strengthening resident access to skill development and training opportunities;
Enhancing the range and scale of community/resident led food initiatives, and
Increasing resident engagement and leadership in the Oriole Food Space by creating a Resident Food spaces to address food access and security issues.