FOCUS ON
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Students share their experiences in community engagement World Food Day
Nude Food Day
My experience working on World Food Day 2013 was fun. I really enjoyed working with the other group members and I liked the feeling that I was doing something to help out less fortunate people in Hong Kong. This is my first year as a student at Discovery College, so I didn’t know anything about C&S (MYP Community & Service). However, I found that my involvement was not too difficult, as we helped each other as a group, and we had Mr Muir to help out when required.
I enjoyed working on Nude Food Day. This is a day where everyone at DC is encouraged to make a healthy lunch that has little or no wrapping that could be bad for the environment. I had worked on this project last year and I wanted to continue helping this year, as I thought it was a really interesting issue. We can do so much simply by reducing the amount of packaging we used.
To start this project, we first had to develop our own knowledge about issues relating to food. We focused on local issues, though these issues such as food waste and hunger are also found around the world. We then did some brainstorming about what we could do, and then created an action plan with all group members having tasks to complete. A major part of our activities was a food drive, supporting the local organisation, Feeding Hong Kong. I was really happy that students donated food, and when we put the donated items together I felt really proud of what we had done. Even though it was only a little bit of help, I was pleased with what we had accomplished.
10
First we set a date for the Nude Food Day, which was on 24 October, and after that we started to research facts in order for us to make posters and put them up at school. We spent several of our team meetings making these posters, which advertised Nude Food Day and shared some of the facts we’d learned, hopefully informing more students and teachers about this issue. Another part of Nude Food Day was that the cafeteria stopped selling bottled drinks for one day, as an incentive to bring your own water bottle. However, there was still one brand of bottled water sold, as the plastic of this bottle is biodegradable. We hoped that this would also raise awareness, as people might ask why no drinks in plastic bottles were being sold that day.
The process of organising our World Food Day activities gave me some knowledge about issues that our community faces and about how we can help. It also helped me learn new skills, and it was quite fun!
Overall, participating in this was a great experience. We all learned more about Nude Food Day and the issue of food and product packaging, in addition to organisational skills. We hope that we raised awareness at Discovery College about Nude Food Day, and it will definitely be hosted again next year, as this is an important topic for our school and community.
Iisa Kosonen Year 9
Kathy Lau Year 11
A DAY IN THE LIFE