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Engaging the community to share about the importance of children's nutrition - Food4Smiles

We willen in Amsterdam Nieuw-West een beweging starten over het belang van gezonde eerste 1000 dagen voor kinderen. Kunst is een perfecte manier om een open dialoog met elkaar aan te gaan, aanvullende inzichten op te halen, resultaten van het onderzoek te delen en meer zichtbaarheid aan ons project te geven. Daarom zijn we met verschillende gevestigde partijen in Amsterdam Nieuw-West een samenwerking aangegaan. Samen met de wijk ontwikkelen we een aantal kunstprojecten. De inzichten van het onderzoek worden ingezet voor de kunstprojecten en vice versa.

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Het Street Art Museum Amsterdam in Nieuw-West kijkt samen met de buurtbewoners hoe een gezonde eerste 1000 dagen er voor hun kinderen uitziet.

Dit jaar worden verschillende workshops georganiseerd met de buurtbewoners en aan de hand hiervan gaat een gerenommeerd graffiti artiest in het najaar een kunstwerk maken in het Confucius-speelpark in Geuzenveld.

SAMA is pleased to announce the new collaboration with the Fred Foundation on the project Food4Smiles. The Fred Foundation is an important dutch organization that has been working for years in promoting a more conscious, healthy and environmentally aware lifestyle. The organization is dedicated to empowering people, improving health and well-being, expanding consciousness, and promoting care for nature and the planet by carrying out their own projects and by supporting other organizations and initiatives through financial donations.

The foundation works together with parents and other stakeholders around the family, investigating what helps them in achieving better lifestyles, using from Participative Action Research and System Science approach. Both methods are particularly suitable for participation by the target groups and other stakeholders.

The project Food4Smiles is a collaboration between the Fred Foundation and Free University (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), led by the renowned prof. dr. ir. Jaap Seidell. The Fred Foundation supports this project financially and is also actively involved in the implementation. The project is based on the fact that the first 1000 days of children’s lives – from conception to a child’s second birthday – offer a unique window of opportunity as the foundations for healthy growth and development later in life are established. Healthy nutrition, tranquillity, and harmony are especially important during this period.

Food4Smiles, together with parents and partners in Amsterdam’s New West district, are looking for ways to give every child the best possible start so that children can develop optimally. Therefore, SAMA has been invited to collaborate with the project, designing an engaging ±12 months program in Geuzenveld/Slotermeer of Amsterdam Nieuw-West. SAMA will be one of the stakeholders for the project, responsible for involving local residents and street artists to raise awareness about giving every child in our community a healthy start, and by consequence a healthier life.

Our goal is to draw the attention of as many residents as possible from the district of Geuzenveld/Slotermeer of Stadsdeel Nieuw-West, using street art as a tool for research, participation, and dialogue about the importance of lifestyle choices during the first 1000 days of the child’s life. The intention is to create a number of workshops, as well as 1 semi-permanent mural, on the territory of the Food4Smiles project representing the values of the Fred Foundation.

During the carefully designed program of activities, in an informal and positive atmosphere, artists, SAMA volunteers, and local people will be able to exchange tools and skills to improve the quality of life, becoming aware of healthier options and choices, in their immediate urban environment, thus improving social communications within the city and in public spaces. The goal is to focus on understanding, learning and sharing the latest trends in urbanism, peculiarities, and nuances of cultural representations in urban space, live choices; and also to think about current events in the lives of other people and their future, their culture, opportunities uniting around able and positive ideas, focusing on art for healthy food and growth.

The whole project will be shared through our social media and local residents will be involved in the documentation and dissemination of the promoted activities. Our long time partner Nina Quax Creative Studio will be also part of the project, helping us to create attractive and informative materials to reach out to the community and promote the initiative. Follow SAMA and Food4Smiles on Instagram to see the project updates!

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