In Tehnopark Celje, we have prepared a project with a group of young people, who are united by a responsible attitude towards their own health, nature and willingness to help each other. In the project we focus on the challenges and obstacles faced by economically disadvantaged young people in preparing a healthy, sustainable, cheap and a nutritious meal with as little food waste as possible.

We are interested in which foods, despite the unfavorable financial situation of young people in the local environment, end up among the waste and how to use them as a healthy meal. We want to encourage young people to participative inclusion and active citizenship, while at the same time achieving greater awareness of the local community about the issue of providing healthy meals to young people who are facing economic barriers, and getting involved in the process of acquiring relevant skills in the use of surplus food and in the preparation of sustainable local meals.

The impossibility of equal access to a healthy lifestyle for individual groups of young people compared to their peers, specifically healthy eating for young people with economic barriers, is a very current, local and global problem. That is why we decided to develop current, inclusive, permanently and unconditionally accessible results of preparing sustainable dishes for young people in the local environment, which we will summarize in an informative and handy cookbook with quick, sustainable and cheap recipes. They will include ingredients that are available in sufficient quantity to young people with economic barriers in the local environment or that are most often disposed of as food waste. This simultaneously reduces the amount of food waste on a personal and local level, ensures a healthy meal for young people and manages the unfavorable economic situation of young people.

We have invited experts from the field of cuisine, working with vulnerable groups of people, from the field of using surplus food and project coordination to participate. All of them are indispensable for the implementation of the project.

Luka Gmajner, a young chef from Celje, who himself is a supporter of sustainable cuisine, without food waste, will help us in designing and developing sustainable dishes and in the conducting the final event of the project - a cooking workshop.

Irena Romih, the head of the Materinski dom, provides healthy meals to young women and mothers who have found themselves in personal, social or housing hardship. She will share with us her experience and knowledge of working with vulnerable groups.

Zdenka Zrinski will present the Donated Food Celje project to us, of which she is the leader. As part of the project, which has already outgrown the borders of Celje, food is distributed to people in need, which is donated daily by retail chains after the shops are closed. This is the food that would have expired at midnight and would have gone to waste.

We will also work with Katja Kolenc, an employee of the Celje Youth center, who will support us in raising awareness of acquired competencies and in the process of spontaneous learning in the project.

With the project, we want to point out that it is crucial to consider the individual as a part of the community and that it is necessary to provide those with fewer opportunities with more easily accessible options. With this, we will take a step closer to reducing nutritional poverty among young people in the local area.

The project is financed by the European Union.