Camden

The London Borough of Camden is a busy inner London borough with a vibrant and diverse population made up of communities from a wide range of ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Camden’s diversity is its strength. On the other side of this coin, structural racism, economic inequality and other forms of discrimination contribute to entrenched inequalities, many of which are reflected in the borough’s food system.

Many places across the SFP network wrestle with similar inequalities, and food partnerships have a vital role in addressing them. This has been the starting point for the work SFP is doing on representation and justice under the banner of FAIR food in response to a question: How can we ensure that our food partnerships genuinely represent their communities and avoid perpetuating the injustice, exclusion and discrimination that exists in society?

A big question with no simple answer. However, Camden Food Partnership is leading the way in demonstrating how to hard-wire representation and justice into its organisation and embed active anti-racism in its work.

Representation and Justice

Who feels welcome in a food partnership, whose knowledge is valued, and who can shape its decisions?  These are vital considerations for a food partnership seeking to build equity and representation into the heart of their operations.  Camden Food Partnership (CFP) is addressing these questions through its values, its governance and the work it does with local partners.

CFP is an organisation...

• with ‘Equity and Inclusion’ at the top of its list of values,

• with a Charter that ‘recognises and celebrates the cultures, traditions and food heritage of Camden’s communities’,

• that platforms and signal-boosts partner organisations and projects rooted in and reflecting Camden’s diverse communities,

• that publishes a Racial Justice Statement emphasising a strong ‘commitment to being an actively anti-racist and inclusive partnership’, and

• that applies and weaves representation and justice throughout its food strategy, action plan, commitments, terms of reference and governance.

CFP embeds these statements and commitments in the day-to-day work of the partnership, its governance and its culture. Its Bronze Award application showed how Camden’s wider borough missions have helped secure investment in community food and created opportunities for residents to have a say and take leading roles in that work. We make Camden

FAIR food

This year SFP has co-produced and launched FAIR food – a framework for action on inclusion and representation – supporting food partnerships to effectively consider the way they work, the culture of their organisations and the people involved through the lens of race, equity, diversity and inclusion.

FAIR food is now incorporated into the SFP awards framework, encouraging action towards building more representative and fair food partnerships. The aim is for this to be mainstreamed across the SFP programme and woven into our 6 key issues, our Toolkit and resources.

FAIR food presents a set of principles and a methodology for practically applying them based on and in response to local context and priorities. Further to this, and emerging directly from the FAIR food co-design sessions, was the need for a way to platform and champion partnerships taking exemplary and significant action – a tangible, coveted recognition and celebration of good practice. This is the FAIR food Star.

Camden’s SFP Bronze Award and FAIR food Star

Camden Food Partnership’s excellent application for an SFP Bronze Award demonstrates how the partnership has evolved from an initial focus on food insecurity (as the Camden Food Poverty Alliance) to a wider local good food movement with a whole food system scope. It also demonstrates how a Borough Council can effectively support and participate in a food partnership co-hosted with a local charity – Feast With Us – establishing a robust and well-balanced relationship. For these and many other reasons CFP has been awarded the Bronze Award and is on a strong trajectory towards Silver.

In addition to this Camden Food Partnership has now been awarded SFP’s first FAIR food Star – holding the partnership up as an exemplar of how to embed FAIR food and take representation and justice seriously. Camden Food Partnership is effectively setting the bar on how to do this by taking practical steps to involve more of Camden’s communities in shaping its work and actively tackling racism, discrimination and marginalisation head-on.

Many congratulations to everyone involved.

Ben Messer – Food Matters

SFP Lead on Representation and Justice