Food Power is a nationwide project that aims to strengthen local communities’ ability to reduce food poverty through solutions developed by them, with the support of their peers from across the UK. Its goal is to transform the way that people in food poverty access support and create long-term, sustainable lives that are free from hunger. Critical to this is engaging local people and alliances, giving voice to those experiencing food poverty, influencing practice on the ground and levering in additional resources.
Funded by the Big Lottery Fund Food Power supports coordinated approaches to tackling food poverty in areas across the UK, tailored to the particular locality and unique policy contexts across the four nations. Food Power supports food inequality alliances to tackle the root causes of food poverty, to give voice to people experiencing food poverty, and to evaluate and share what works well.
The programme includes four main work streams:
- Supporting local food poverty alliances: We help build capacity and facilitate sharing of experiences between communities, with local empowerment at the programme’s core. Following clear demand, we work with a network of local peer mentors to help other areas establish food poverty alliances or networks, secure resources to turn commitments into reality and develop action plans.
- Learning and sharing good practice: At the heart of this programme is the exchange of ideas and learning, facilitated by programme staff, but equally through peer-to-peer learning across the network and the co-production of information and resources. We provide the national infrastructure and coordination to facilitate active sharing and learning, including through peer alliance visits, webinars, action toolkits, an annual conference and other resources.
- Involving experts by experience: We support the active engagement of individuals within the programme who have experienced food poverty. We are piloting models of involvement in local areas and supporting groups through a combination of capacity-building training, mentoring and resources.
- Evidencing what works at the local level: We assist local areas to evidence the impact of their work. This include advice and support on robust monitoring and evaluation methodologies from staff and academics, as well as piloting specific evaluation models.