RIGHT NOW! The right to food!

with proposals for learning activities

Amazingly deliciousadventures!

Interactive stories

The funniest stories on food

Editor:Ayuda en Acción

Authors:The Yetooponese association team: Zulema Cadenas GagoMaría Pérez FernándezElena Fernández SuárezJosé María Pérez Fernández

Illustrations and layout:Hoboland

Translated by: Students of the module 35620 General Translation II at the Universitat de València.Supervised by: Sergio MaruendaIsabel TelloGabriela Harsulescu

Index

Trish, a very brave fishTheme: Access to resources in Southern countries......................................... p. 4 Didactic Unit...................................................................................................... p. 9 Worksheets........................................................................................................ p. 14

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Well known by each and everyone, the sea of Senegal is a warm and lively sea where the grey groupers live happily (or thiof, as they are called in Wolof, one of the most widely spoken languages in Senegal). Of all the groupers, one of the bravest is Trish. It was noted a few days after her birth because of her daring stunts between corals and their forays to the surface of the sea.

- Be careful, Trish! It’s okay to be brave, but by going so close to the surface you may be caught - her mother advised every night when they woke up. (The groupers wake up at night and sleep in the daytime in the deep sea, hidden among the rocks.)

- If you are there and you see any cuttlefish, octopus or sardines that look like they are waiting for you to eat them, do not get close, as it may be a fisherman trying to catch you!

Following her mother’s advice, every night Trish is careful not to eat any bait but she carries on with her tours. She loves to see the bright moonlight filtering through the sea, watching the reflections of the waves crashing and hearing the murmur of the boats and the voices of the fishermen.

After visiting the surface of the water night after night, she became familiar with the moon, the waves and the colourful boats of the fishermen.

Theme: Access to resources in Southern countries

Trish, a very brave fish

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Out of all the fishermen, she most liked to listen to one called Ndiaga. His voice is harsh yet sweet, and when he talks about fish, he does it with great respect, thanking and honouring their existence.

“Ndiaga is not like the rest of the fishermen. I would love to meet him, to see what he looks like,” thinks Trish as she falls asleep.

Finally one night, when listening to Ndiaga sing, Trish makes up her mind and … Splash! She shoots to the surface, jumping towards the sky with a tremendous pirouette in front of the boat. Ndiaga is stunned; he had never before seen such a feat. A grey fish jumping out on the surface! What a miracle, what a magnificent moment!

From this moment Ndiaga and Trish’s friendship grows. Ndiaga marvels at the existence of such a beautiful and brave fish, and each night he visits the same point on the beach trying to catch Trish. Trish spends the nights hanging out around Ndiaga’s boat. Sometimes she pirouettes, other times she takes the bait only to escape at the last moment, after a good while of struggling with Ndiaga. On one occasion, Ndiaga catches Trish, and when Trish takes the bait he looks her in the eye with great admiration, and says:

- You’re a majestic fish, but you have a lot more growing to do. Return to the sea, my friend.

Trish never forgot the emotion of this meeting, talking non-stop about it with her friends and family, inebriating them with her adventures.

One night like any other, with the full moon reflecting in the sea’s foam, Trish moves further away than usual towards the coast and towards the surface. Suddenly, the waters around her become murky and choppy. In the blink of an eye, Trish is caught up in a terrible muddle of fish, seaweed and other sea creatures, crashing into them until she loses consciousness.

- Hey! Hey, mate! Quickly, wake up!

Upon opening her eyes, she meets the nose of a sardine that looks at her with fear in his eyes.

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- Come on friend, wake up, there isn’t time to sleep! - insisted the sardine.- We have been caught by an enormous boat, we only have about 5 minutes to escape. As we are still small I think we could escape the nets. Follow me! I know how to do it! My aunty who was recently captured explained it to me.

“Calm, relax, think about it a moment, don’t panic”, thinks Trish. “I have to make a brave decision, don’t let fear take over and act in the wrong way. What will be the most courageous? Do I dare flee with the sardine or do I go with the nets and live who knows what kind of adventures? “

What do you think Trish should do?

Should she escape with the sardine or stay in the big boat’s nets?

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“Come on, friend, make a decision! If you don’t, I’ll make a run for it on my own!” The Sardine shouts, all flustered.

“OK buddy, let’s go! There has to be a way to escape,” replied Trish, whilst they both take to their heels.

And then, for the next half an hour Trish closely follows the sardine into a labyrinth of seaweed, the remains of old corals and stunned fish all bumping into each other. Finally, when they are almost completely worn out, they go into a deep and dark part of the net that is almost completely covered in seaweed and seashells. The sardine frantically rummages through the seaweed until she finds a hole and they both free themselves from the net.

“Thank you so much sardine, I will never forget what you have done for me, I hope you lead a very happy life” – Trish wishes to her friend as she says goodbye.

After this incredible adventure, Trish’s life goes by in a very normal fashion, between playing with her friends, having children and forming an ever-growing friendship with Ndiaga the fisher-man.

Almost every night, Trish makes her way down to Ndiaga’s colourful boat and does pirouettes in front of him. Meanwhile, Ndiaga tells her some story from his village and admires how much Trish is growing, and how she is going to grow up into a beautiful adult grouper.

At long last, on a beautiful night, Ndiaga manages to catch Trish with one of his baits. This time Ndiaga’s eyes welled with tears of emotion as he releases Trish from his bait.

‘Your time has come, my friend. You have had a wonderful life and created a family. Now you will grace my table and feed my family.’

Option 1:

Escape with the sardine

Ndiaga returns to the coastline in his small boat and brought Trish into his adobe home. When Ndiaga’s wife and children see Trish they are filled with joy and happiness. “What a big and beautiful fish!” “What a treat for the family!”

This was a very special day indeed. Ndiaga’s wife goes to the village market, and with the money that they had earned selling the sardines that Ndiaga had fished alongside Trish, she buys carrots, cabbage, onions, aubergines and tomatoes. When at home, she gets the rice, oil and spices out of the pantry, and with all the ingredients and Trish she cooks Thiebudienne.

When all the family are ready they get together around the pot and eat the succulent dish with their hands.

Today Ndiaga and his family will eat until they are full, tomorrow will be another day… it all depends on what the sea brings them. And with this in mind, Ndiaga has a moment of silence to respectfully remember his friend before starting to eat.

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“Leave without me, sardine. I prefer to stay and see what adventures are waiting for me - said Trish. I have decided to enjoy all that will happen.”

“Good luck my friend!” Said the sardine and bustled away.

At that moment revelry began in the nets. Everybody has relaxed, after the initial fear, and jokes and confidences start among the fishes, and happy cries when the boat speeds up and the nets become a huge roller coaster. After a long while, a last great climb on the roller coaster and then... badaboom! The fishes, the algae, shells and all others suddenly fall onto the deck of the boat. Trish starts to hear sailors scream. This time they didn’t speak Wolof like Ndiaga but other languages unknown to her. After a lot of agitation from the sailors, Trish and the others find themselves into a conveyer machine, which leads them into a dark tunnel. Once in the tunnel it was cold and after a while, little by little they fall asleep and start to dream.

“Brr! It’s cold. Where am I? What happened?” Trish wakes up with a violent chattering of the teeth, surrounded by many other fishes.

When she starts to look around she realizes that she was on the counter of a fishery, inside a huge supermarket where she could see products that she would have never thought existed. Most of the people who buy things at the fishery don’t look like Ndiaga and don’t speak Wolof either.

“I’m probably in Europe, as the fishermen were calling it,” thought Trish.

After a few hours, a family buys Trish together with a bunch of sardines, cuttlefishes, and calamari and put them into a cart full of things such as yogurts, pizzas, cheese, vegetables, meat, drinks and cookies.

Option 2:

Stay in the big boat’s nets

After a quick trip by car, the family arrives at home where they put the food into the fridge, which was actually already full. That night they cooked Trish and sat down for diner in front of a table full of things.

“Kids, you should eat fish and not so much pizza and French fries, because it’s not healthy. Says the grandmother.”

As usual, the family eats until they are full and after that, a lot of food ends up in the rubbish bin because no one could finish it up. Trish sees all the other discarded food with her so she thinks: “I wonder if Ndiaga’s family would also have let me go to waste.”

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Didactic UnitAccess to resources in the Southern countries

Did you like how Trish’s story ends? Why? What do you think would have happened if she had taken the other option? What differences do you think there are between the diet in southern countries, such as Senegal, and the north, like Spain? Where do you think the food we eat in Spain comes from? Do you think there are people who eat an unhealthy diet in the southern countries? And in the north? Why?

Pre-school My pantry

Materials: Worksheet The Pantries for cutting out the food, colours, a large piece of card or brown paper and glue.

Estimated time: 50 minutes

Read Trish, a very brave fish, and ask a few key questions. Talk to them about becoming a fish like Trish and fishermen like Ndiaga. Ask for a volunteer to be Ndiaga, the fisherman, and tell the rest to be fish like Trish. The group will play tag, and Ndiaga will have to fish every single fish. When he catches them, the fish will be paralysed with their legs apart and the rest will be able to save them by passing between their legs. The game will end when Ndiaga has caught all the fish or when it’s gone on too long.

Next, ask for volunteers to be part of the fishing vessel’s fleet. The number of volunteers will be around a quarter of the group. The boat’s fleet will hold hands and must catch the fish without letting go. When they are caught, the fish will remain paralysed and the rest could save them going through their open legs. The game will end when all the fish have been caught.

Activities

Key questions to ask the group after reading the tale

Objectives• Acknowledge the importance of the right to a healthy and adequate diet.• Acknowledge the differences in the access to nutritional resources of the countries in the

South compare to the northern countries. • Reflect on the possible causes of the inequality existing in the right to food in the world.• Take a look at how the current system of food production works and its consequences.

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After the game, ask the group who found fishing more difficult, Ndiaga or those in the boat, and remind them that the majority of fish eaten in Spain are caught by trawling fleets and not through traditional fishing by hand.

Afterwards, give each student one of the pictures of a type of food that appears on the pantry card at the end of the teaching instructions. Ask the students to colour them in. Once they have finished, get each student to show theirs. Ask them to explain what they think it is and get everyone to repeat the name.

Stick a poster where everyone can see, divided into two halves, on which is written: Ndiaga’s Pantry/European Family’s Pantry. When each person reveals their food, stick it on the corre-sponding side of the poster. When complete, tell them to look at the two pantries and ask the group:

• What food is in Ndiaga’s pantry?

• What food is in the European family’s pantry?

• Which pantry has more food?

• Which family do you think could sometimes risk going hungry?

• Which family do you think could risk being overweight?

• Which family do you think would waste more food?

• Which pantry looks more like pantries of people in our city?

To finish, remind the class of the unequal distribution of resources in southern countries and ask them to draw a type of food that they think is more healthy and nutritious and that everyone would be able to eat. When they are finished, put them all together and stick them in Ndiaga’s pantry so that his family will never go hungry.

Years 1-3 of Primary Education

Pantries of the world

Materials: Photos from the Hungry Planet project printed in colour on A4 paper (link in the ‘Find out more’ section), world maps printed on A4 (preferably the Gilles-Peter’s or Win-kel-Tripel’s projection) and coloured pencils.

Estimated time: 50 minutes

Read Trish, a very brave fish and then ask some of the key questions. Tell the group that, just like when we are born and don’t get to choose our family or where we live, we are going to have a class raffle and pretend that each student has been born in the country they take.

We give a paper to each participant with the name of one of the five countries we will work with. We ask them to form groups according to the assigned countries. Each group receives a photo of a family from that country and a map of the world. They must find where that country is on the map and, by looking at the family’s photograph with food from their pantry, they must think what their diet is like. We guide them with these questions and tasks:

• What foods are there in their pantry? Write what you think each thing is under the photo.

• How many times do they eat during the day? Draw on the photo as many dishes as meals you believe they have during the day.

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• Which could be one of their meals? Write on one of the dishes what you think they can eat in one meal.

• Do they have enough food to be healthy and strong?

• Are they in danger of gaining too much weight?

• Are they in danger of going hungry?

• Are they wasting food? Draw a dustbin on the picture if you believe that they throw away a lot of food.

When the groups have finished put all the photos in a place everyone can see well and ask questions to different families, helping them make comparisons between each other and discover how in the southern countries access to food is much more difficult than in the north.

Finally, ask why they think this happens and give them some of the reasons.

Unequal access to food resources in the South World

Agricultural production could be enough to feed twice the world population. However, the number of hungry people is increasing every year.

The causes of the lack of access to food resources in the South are numerous and complex:

The Right to Food document written by Ayuda en Acción will give you more information on these causes.

You can download the document here:

http://www.oda-alc.org/documentos/1366753120.pdf

Years 4-6 or Primary Education

Turn the world upside down

Materials: Copies of world maps with calorie consumption by country and carbohydrate contribution to the world market. Internet access or printed summaries on food resources from Ecuador, Spain, USA and Senegal (Links to the two materials in Find out more at the end of the unit).

Estimated time: 50 minutes

We read the story Trish, a very brave fish and ask some key questions.

When they have answered the questions that refer to the diet of the European family and the family of Ndiaga, ask the following questions: Is it not a bit strange that Trish the fish lives in the sea of Senegal but it seems there is more fish and more food available to the European family than to Ndiaga’s family? Do you think that this is realistic? Why does this happen? Let us see if we can figure it out together.

Divide the class into 4 groups. Each group is going to represent a different country. They cannot choose which, the same as that they couldn’t choose when they were born. The countries are: Ecuador, Senegal, Spain and the United States of America. Each group has to search for information about the country that they have been given and find the following information:

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• Location, capital city, climate and some traditional customs

• Poverty and malnutrition index

• Food produced in the country

Once they have gathered the information, give each group the maps of the world that show the calorie consumption and the market contribution of carbohydrates and explain to them what each one means. Ask them to analyse the situation of their country in each map and decide if it seems logical and fair and why. Then ask them to search for possible solutions to the situation. Once they have finished, each group chooses a spokesperson that will meet with the other spokespeople of the ‘world’ to see if together, they can change the situation. Ask each spokesperson to talk about their country and state whether their situation is fair or not. Help with the presentation and debate of the spokespeople as if it were a world summit that is considering these issues and is searching for possible solutions.

Once they finish the debate, compliment the ideas raised with information about the contra-dictions of the current system of production and its consequences for southern countries.

Today’s production system and access to resources

In the last 30 years, an agriculture and food system based on industrial agriculture has been promoted all over the world. It has pushed productive specialisation in such a way that every country has since tried to produce to a greater extent, on a larger scale, those crops that allow every country to have a comparative advantage.

This has a series of consequences that affect the access to resources in third world coun-tries.

In the document, Just hunger. The six major predicaments in the fight against hunger, edited by the campaign ‘The Right to food. Urgent!’ you will find more information on the topic.

You can download the document here: http://www.derechoalimentacion.org/webkwdere-cho/materiales/detallematerial.asp?campanumaterid=21

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Organise a photo exhibition in the school showing the different realities as regards food in countries in the South and in the North. You can ask participants to search and print a picture of the food of a family or a person in a southern country. Then, ask them to take a picture of their own food or of the food in their pantries (as in the Hungry Planet project). Show all these pictures together.

• Photo project Hungry Planet. What the world eats: www.menzelphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Hungry-Planet-Family-Food-Portraits/G0000zmgWvU6SiKM/C0000k7JgEHhEq0w/

• Campaign Right to Food. Urgent: www.derechoalimentacion.org

• Management of fishing grouper in Senegal: www.es.ird.fr/la-mediateca/fichas-cientificas/422-desaparicion-del-mero-en-senegal-gestion-ineficaz-de-la-pesca-artesanal

• Thieboudienne cooking recipe: www.senegaleando.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/thieboudienne/

• Map of calorie consumption per capita: www.chartsbin.com/view/1150

• Map of carbohydrate contribution to the world’s market: www.chartsbin.com/view/1154

Extra activity

Find out more

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WorksheetThe pantries

European family pantry

RICE RICE

COCOA

BR

EA

D

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The pantriesWorksheetThe pantries

European family pantry

HAM

MILKCustard Custard

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Ayuda en Acción is a Spanish organisation for development cooperation. We have been working for more than 34 years now to improve the living conditions of the poorest com-munities and transform the lives of millions of people.

We carry out more than 100 sustainable development programmes and awareness cam-paigns and advocacy work, thus contributing to improving the lives of more than 2.5 million people in 22 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and in Spain.

Education plays a key role in all programmes, given its importance in the processes of social change and in the formation of people of justice and solidarity.

AHORATOCA...

ayudaenaccion.org/ahoratoca

WorksheetThe pantries

Ndiaga’s pantry

17

Ayuda en Acción is a Spanish organisation for development cooperation. We have been working for more than 34 years now to improve the living conditions of the poorest com-munities and transform the lives of millions of people.

We carry out more than 100 sustainable development programmes and awareness cam-paigns and advocacy work, thus contributing to improving the lives of more than 2.5 million people in 22 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and in Spain.

Education plays a key role in all programmes, given its importance in the processes of social change and in the formation of people of justice and solidarity.

AHORATOCA...

ayudaenaccion.org/ahoratoca

The pantries