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Food and Solutions

The Young Mayor and Youth Reps for Hull are a voluntary group of 20+ young people aged 11 to 17 years old who meet weekly to discuss the policies and services that are important to them.

In Summer 2023, the group met with the Lord Mayor and local MP Emma Hardy to discuss what would be useful to support young people in the city. In this meeting, the seed of the idea was planted: a ‘Food and Solutions’ app which helps to address the barriers young people face in accessing quality food and community support.

From this time until January 2025, the group met and worked extensively with the Hull Food Partnership on the initiation, creation, design, implementation and promotion of the app. This included:

  • Researching facts and figures relating to food security in Hull.
  • Identifying the wider health and wellbeing impacts of food poverty.
  • Accessing information about food justice and the right to food.
  • Sourcing funding options to support the development of the resource.

From this information, the group envisaged the app should:

  • Contain facts and tips about nutrition.
  • Provide affordable recipes.
  • Share details of local organisations providing quality food support.
  • Equip young people with information they can share with their families and friends.

After engaging with several potential funders, the group were able to submit two successful bids to HEY Smile Foundation and the Hull City Council’s Leader’s Fund to help take the work forward.

With the funding available and support from the Hull Food Partnership, the group commissioned a graphic designer and developer for the app, who met with the group to first visualise their ideas and then turn this vision into reality.

During this time, the group was invited to contribute to the development of the Hull Food Strategy, which was later launched in December 2024.

Using the information gained from their involvement, as well as personal experience, the group were also able to deliver a presentation around the challenges in accessing nutritious food at the Young People’s Scrutiny Engagement Group in September 2024. This presentation helped drive further interest in the Food and Solutions app as well as the Hull Food Strategy.

Despite timely progression, due to unforeseen circumstances, the development of the Food and Solutions app was unable to proceed as planned.

With the amount of time, energy and commitment of all involved, the Hull Food Partnership worked together with the Hull Young Mayor’s Office as well as the Young Mayor and Youth Voice group to develop a plan for the Food and Solutions platform to become a website instead.

Hull Food Partnership took this plan to the Digital Solutions team at Hull CVS, who due to the importance of this work and time constraints, prioritised this work, incorporating the written content created by the group and the work from the graphic designer. Within a week, the team had created a demo website, which was then presented to the group.

During this presentation, any feedback given by the group was immediately acted upon and following further feedback from members who could not attend, the new Food and Solutions website was soon ready to launch.

With the website completed, the group decided to run a launch campaign with sessions being held at several of Hull’s youth centres and youth groups to promote the website directly to young people.

In the run-up to the launch campaign, the Hull Food Partnership provided the group with resources and activities around healthy eating and nutrition so that the young people could develop workshops to engage with their peers and promote Food and Solutions to a wider audience.

Following the sessions, the group received feedback from young people which included:

“Today’s session has been so much fun” – HNW CYP

“The website is clear useful and well designed” – Andrew Marvel Youth Centre CYP

Following the end of the campaign, the group distributed media packs which contained posters and ‘Food & Solution’ stickers (which includes a QR code to access the website) to secondary schools, community centres, pharmacies and libraries across Hull; aiming to promote the website at places young people and families with young people would most likely visit.

When asked about how they felt following the campaign, the Young Mayor and Youth Voice group said:

“We are extremely excited to see the campaign happen because it is so powerful. We have a strong sense of pride regarding our work and hope it will have a positive impact on many people.”

Additionally, Lisa Wedgner Youth Worker in the Voice & Influence team said:

“Without the tireless work of everyone involved this fantastic and much needed resource would not have been readily available and able to meet the needs of so many. It has been wonderful to be a part of the journey which was not only started through the ideas from and passion of Hull’s young people but where everyone involved has allowed for the path to be actively shaped by them.”

Whilst the work for the Food and Solutions website has been completed, the Hull Food Partnership will continue to maintain the website to ensure that every young person in Hull has opportunity to access the support they need to live a healthy and nutritious lifestyle.

To view the platform, please visit: https://foodsolutions.nurturehull.org.uk/