Our Impact & Policy Officer Tilly Robinson-Miles shares some key policy in practice work throughout July 2020, including being a panellist at a roundtable discussion with Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
I’m Tilly, Impact and Policy Officer for Eat Well Age Well. As part of this new series Eat Well Age Well Team members will be talking about things they have been doing over the last month.
In relation to our ‘Policy into Practice’ strand of work, last week, I sat as a panellist on a joint event organised by the Scottish Food Coalition and Human Rights Consortium Scotland. Eat Well Age Well is a member of the Scottish Food Coalition, which “is a diverse alliance of civil society organisations working for food justice”.
The event was a roundtable discussion with Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, and was chaired by Elaine Smith MSP for Central Scotland. The key question posed was ‘How can we ensure that Scotland’s Covid-19 recovery has wellbeing at it’s heart?’
With nearly 200 attendees across a broad range of civil society organisations and government departments, as well as the general public, the event was a great opportunity for us to share key findings from Eat Well Age Well’s past 2 years of work, as well as recognise how these intersect with the ‘Right to Food’ and Scotland’s Covid-19 recovery. Elaine Smith MSP has proposed for a Bill to incorporate the Human Right To Food into Scots Law.
I highlighted that as an organisation Covid-19 has not shown us anything new, but instead has demonstrated why change is urgent. With shielding and self-isolation particularly prevalent amongst individual’s over the age of 65 years, I discussed the importance of the social and wellbeing value of food. Drawing on research commissioned by Eat Well Age Well, led by the University of Glasgow, I demonstrated how social risk factors, particularly social isolation and loneliness, have a direct connection to malnutrition. Ultimately arguing a holistic, whole system approach must be adopted that recognises these issues don’t exist in silo and we must consider food and health as interconnected issues.
If you want to find out more, the event was recorded, and we’ll be sure to share the link when the recording is available.