Engaging youth in sustainability – WFF community picnic

On 12 September 2024, the World Food Forum (WFF) hosted its community picnic at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy. The event brought together 25 young journalists, influencers, students and sustainability advocates to address the critical issue of food waste. Integrating education, engagement and hands-on activities, the event provided a space for participants to learn effective ways to combat food waste and adopt habits to reduce it in their daily lives. The picnic had engaging conversations, activities and food made from rescued ingredients.

Participants earned their invitation by taking part in a social media challenge, where they followed hidden clues around the Colosseum. Successfully completing the challenge granted them access to the community picnic.

Active engagement: Learning by doing

The picnic engaged the participants in creative activities combining sustainability, art and nature. With the first workshop, attendees designed tote bags using vegetables as stamps, creating colorful patterns with onion halves, potato stamps and other vegetable cuts.

In the next activity, participants planted seeds using regrowing seed paper, sponsored by Piantami, emphasizing the full sustainability cycle. This paper, made from recycled materials, supports the zero-waste goal by returning to nature and growing into a plant.

Additionally, participants took part in the Freerice challenge, a trivia game launched by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to create a food-secure future. Every correct answer generates a donation of 10 grains of rice, which will go into WFP’s life-saving missions.

WFF also prepared food for the picnic using rescued ingredients provided by Recup, an Italian association focused on recovering unsold produce and preventing food waste. By using these ingredients, we aimed to show participants how food that might otherwise be discarded can be repurposed to create delicious, sustainable meals, inspiring attendees to rethink how they approach food consumption and waste reduction.

With the involvement of local influencers, such as @rometo_do, we were able to reach a broad and diverse audience, further making this pilot event as inclusive as possible. The goal is to make this event a recurring opportunity for individuals to share ideas, build connections and work on practical solutions.

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