URJC Food Science and Technology students committed to the SDGs

A group of 18 students from the four courses of the Degree in Food Science and Technology have carried out great social work during this academic year to raise awareness and promote the importance of carrying out a fair, healthy and sustainable diet among the young and vulnerable population of the Community of Madrid.

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To this end, workshops have been held on improving eating habits, measures to reduce food waste and improve sustainability, and guidelines to promote a healthier lifestyle.

All this has been done within the "MOVE PROJECT, FOR A FAIR, HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD" funded by the URJC University Service-Learning Office (ApS) that was carried out during the 2022-2023 academic year.

With this social work of awareness and training, students have acquired a leading role in achieving several of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, highlighting SDGs 2 and 3, mainly related to awareness of the nutritional benefits of food and the importance of following a balanced diet to have a good state of health; and SDGs 8, 12 and 13, related to the need to reduce food waste and minimize environmental impact through responsible and sustainable fair consumption.

In the workshops, the students have worked with adolescents and young mothers with small children in their care, all of them at risk of social exclusion, and for this they have collaborated with Social Centers of the Madrid City Council. They have given 3 theoretical-practical workshops lasting 2 hours between April and May 2023, and in them they intended to raise awareness among the attendees about the importance of eating a healthy and sustainable diet, emphasizing the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, and the need to minimize the consumption of sugary and ultra-processed foods. In addition, the workshops had a practical part in which games adapted to the theoretical content of the workshops were used, such as the Goose Game, Jenga or calculating how much sugar different products contain based on the interpretation of their labeling.

The workshops were very well received by the participants, and they obtained a very good evaluation both by the attendees and by the social educators, who appreciated the involvement of the students and their work in food education in this disadvantaged sector of the population. In addition, through the Learning and Service methodology, the students of the Degree in Food Science and Technology participating in this project have been able to put into practice in a real environment many of the knowledge and skills acquired throughout the degree in different subjects, but especially this project has allowed them to develop social skills such as empathy, which on many occasions are difficult to acquire from university classrooms and are very necessary for their future professional development, thus achieving an improvement in the quality of education (SDG4) in classrooms. university.