Co-creating Food System Innovations Centred in Schools and Driven by Communities
This research highlighted the multifaceted challenges rural communities face within food systems, surfacing the economic, environmental, and gendered social outcomes of food insecurity. It also provided a detailed understanding of the challenges faced by rural farmers and communities and offered insights into potential solutions that promote sustainability, resilience, and improved livelihoods.
YEAR
2024
LOCATION
Kenya
ROLE
Creative Director
PARTNERS
Malaika Kitchens
Rockefeller Foundation
Kimanya Ngeyo Foundation
APPROACH
HCD Research
Qualitative Research
COLLABORATORS
Sandra Waihuini
Varsha Pradhan
Aika Matemu
Schools are integral to communities, making them ideal centres of transformation, initiating change and spreading influence. A school-driven model of food system innovation leverages schools’ infrastructure and social networks to educate, innovate, and implement sustainable food practices. Educational programs integrated with agricultural development can equip students and their communities with the knowledge and tools to improve their immediate food environment and develop long-term practical solutions to food insecurity.
Our research employed a Human-Centred Design (HCD) approach. HCD focuses on involving the end-users throughout the research process, ensuring that their needs, perspectives, and experiences shape the outcomes and solutions. We used 1:1 in-depth interviews (IDIs), small group focus discussions (SGDs), community-led sessions and subject matter expert (SME) interviews with a broad cross-section of community stakeholders in the rural community ecosystem. The goal of this work was to surface, connect, and design ideas anchored on the lived experiences of participants, with particular interest in investigating opportunities for schools as the centre of food system innovation.
Explore pathways where schools can be platforms to promote food system transformation.
Embrace an ecosystem and community-centred approach to school feeding, setting the stage for lasting change.
Co-create and rigorously test a proof of concept that can be tailored, scaled, and replicated across diverse contexts.
Participatory worksheets and sort cards from the conversations we had with participants in the primary schools and local communities that we visited for the research in Kirinyaga, Kenya.
Filling out a research worksheet during interviews.
A student drawing out ideas around her ideal school compound.
Some of the card sorts we used to map out stakeholders and activities in rural community ecosystems.
Filling out a research worksheet during interviews.
"We have embraced traditional preservation methods like sun drying maize. We teach our students the value of these methods because things have become expensive these days. By incorporating these methods into our curriculum, we hope that the future generation of farmers can be more resourceful and rely on what is available."
Quote from a teacher Teacher from a rural primary school in Kirinyaga
"
This work highlighted the food system challenges that hinder agricultural productivity, sustainability, and system innovation for rural communities. These challenges include:
Unpredictable weather patterns that impact farmers' yields and contingency plans, forcing many to gamble at every stage of the crop season.
Destructive patterns of ecosystem degradation are driven by poverty and a lack of awareness about the importance of biodiversity.
Market saturation from cycles of mono-cropping makes it difficult for farmers to profit.
Rural isolation, leaving some farming communities constantly struggling to adapt to the ever-changing realities of agricultural practices and climate change, and relying on outdated, weather-dependent methods.
Risky health and safety choices around the preservation and storage of farm produce, often made to cut costs and survive economic pressures.
These systemic challenges exacerbate existing social and cultural issues faced by students, young people and rural communities, such as:
Physical and mental health deterioration, particularly among children, leading to malnutrition, stress, and social isolation.
Unhealthy eating habits and aspirations driven by limited access to nutritious foods and cultural biases against indigenous foods.
Gendered impacts of scarcity, affecting girls and boys in distinct ways and creating a societal crisis that robs them of their childhood.
Migration and generational gaps that reinforce the narrative of farming as a last resort rather than a viable career choice. The pervasive poverty in low-income rural communities perpetuates this mindset, widening the generational gap and draining rural areas of young talent as they opt for city life.
Despite these issues, rural communities are actively coping, surviving, and building resilience within their food systems through school systems by:
Building community-oriented support systems where teachers and schools extend their roles to meet students' basic needs through school feeding programs and social support.
Using school kitchen gardens as cost-effective food sources for local schools and practical learning spaces for food security and sustainability.
Blending traditional and innovative practices to enhance sustainability and food security, thereby reducing dependence on expensive external inputs and optimising for a more harmonious integration of perspectives.
Scroll through the gallery below for a view of some of the visual assets that we developed to amplify the learnings from this work.
A journey map describing the barriers, drivers and opportunities for food systems innovations at a household and community level.
Using the challenges and the resilient strategies that we discovered in the research, we co-created a robust community hub concept that is centred on school activities and aims to bring together teachers, parents, farmers and students for food system innovation.
Description and visualisation of the operational model of the proposed hub.
A journey map describing the barriers, drivers and opportunities for food systems innovations at a household and community level.