Educational programme "The power on your plate"
![Educational programme "The power on your plate"](/_imgfiles/practice_sustainable_1719570858_good_practice.webp)
BUSINESS: 515 PRACTICES
Lidl Hellas has been active in Greece since 1999. Today the company employs more than 6700 workers, while its network includes 230 stores and 5 state-of-the-art supply centers. It is included for the 6th consecutive year in "The Most Sustainable Companies in Greece", while for the 7th consecutive year it receives the distinction of "Top Employer" in Greece and Europe.
At Lidl Greece we are proud because we build perspective for all our stakeholders, on solid, sustainable foundations. Business ethics are a source of inspiration for our values and the chain of responsibility becomes an act of sustainable empowerment for our own people, consumers, partners.
Sustainability for us is not a simple wording, but shapes our business profile and runs horizontally through our daily life.
We are moving on the trajectory of a new sustainability strategy, which develops in three dynamic axes: "Good for the planet", "Good for people" and "Good for you" with the individual actions spread over six strategic pillars: climate protection, respect for biodiversity, conservation of resources, business law, health protection and participation in dialogue. It is a functional as well as an innovative approach that allows us to respond with best practices, at the right time, to a variety of challenges. We adapt quickly, build efficiency and remain sustainable, extroverted and beneficial to the whole.
It is an initiative of Lidl Hellas and ActionAid. Lidl Hellas sponsored all the individual actions of the programme, culminating in the Student Action Week 2023, on the theme of sustainable snacking, aiming at educating, informing, raising awareness and mobilising teachers and students. The Student Week of Action 2023 was held in May 2023 and is under the auspices of the Directorate General of Studies for Primary and Secondary Education. Through activities and actions, the aim is to raise awareness on the issue of healthy and sustainable food and consumption, cultivating skills and acquiring new knowledge. Education and awareness-raising on the Sustainable Development Goals can help students to think critically, adopt responsible habits and behaviours and become active citizens for a sustainable world for all people.
Τhe company is also sponsoring for the second year all the individual actions of the programme for the 2023-2024 school year, culminating in the 2024 Student Week of Action, which seeks to unite the voices of students in the education community and create the right conditions for a more sustainable world. The campaign, which this year focused on food justice as a necessary condition for a more just world, was enriched with new ideas and activities for all schools in Greece and the educational material is under the approval of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs.
The programme is addressed to kindergarten, primary, secondary, high school and second chance schools throughout the country, but also to teachers through the provision of appropriate teaching materials and supervisory tools. In this context, pupils, with the help of their teachers, are informed about sustainable nutrition, food waste and how to deal with it, responsible consumption and consciously healthy eating, and participate with their groups in creative activities inside and outside the school premises.
Τhe action started in April 2023 when the material was sent to the schools and continued in the next school year with new educational material and actions and will be completed in July 2024.
An educational programme that was implemented in the school year 2022-2023, and in the school year 2023-2024, on balanced nutrition, responsible consumption, reduction of food waste and food justice.
Lidl Hellas sponsors ActionAid's comprehensive educational programme entitled "The Power on Your Plate" and encourages students of all educational levels to take an active role and become change agents on nutrition and responsible consumption issues. The aim of the programme is to help shape the active citizens of tomorrow by building attitudes and perceptions of healthy, sustainable eating, responsible consumption and awareness of food waste.
The central themes of the campaign for the school year 2022-2023 were sustainable nutrition, responsible consumption and food waste, while the action culminated with the Student Action Week and the creation of a poster on sustainable food in Greece.
For the school year 2023-2024, the programme focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 1 for Zero Poverty, Goal 2 for Zero Hunger), focusing on food justice, i.e. equitable access of people to sufficient and healthy food and the assumption that healthy food is a human right. The educational package of the Action included a guide to activities and activities, a role-playing game with cards for the whole class and a map of local Greek products by prefecture. The central activity for this year was the creation of a poster with food justice as the main theme and slogan. A review of the Power on Your Plate program is available through a three-episode podcast series titled "Food Justice in Schools." The podcasts feature representatives from the education community, ActionAid and Lidl Hellas, as well as our chef and ambassador Gogo Delogianni and are available on the programme page. As part of the Student Action Week 2024, a Student Poster Competition on Food Justice was organised for the first time. The deadline for submitting projects for participation in the competition was 26 April, while the awards and prizes were presented at a special awards ceremony held on 12 June at the ActionAid Youth Centre in Thessaloniki.
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To date, more than 500,000 students and 40,000 teachers of all levels have participated in ActionAid's programmes for 20 consecutive years in schools all over Greece. In the past school year, more than 6,700 children from all educational levels participated in ActionAid's Student Week of Action, which was sponsored by Lidl Hellas.
The comprehensive educational package created for both school years , is a highly flexible material, which provides opportunities and inspiration for its use based on the student population and any circumstances. Thus, with simple adaptations and modifications, the educational package as a whole met the specific learning needs of each group. Based on the above logic, a variety of methodologies were chosen in order to activate all "learning types" of students.
The success of the above framework is confirmed by the participation of Special Schools, children and adults, Second Chance schools and especially by all the posters sent by the schools.
The students worked with great interest on the educational materials and, with the support of the teachers, inspired and created posters for both school years. During the Student Action Weeks 2023 and 2024, students, guided by more than 200 teachers, approached important themes: good health and well-being, sustainable production and consumption, climate action and food sovereignty. Participants were provided with educational materials, including an activity guide, a glossary of key terms, a board game, an action calendar, a comic book and a role-playing card game. Through an experiential process, children and adolescents understood complex concepts such as the concept of "food hygiene" and "food justice" by playing and creating rhymes.
The majority of participating schools were primary schools (55% kindergartens and 27% primary schools) , while 11% were secondary schools. A notable percentage of participants also (17% of the total) were participants from special schools, special vocational education workshops as well as second chance schools.
Schools from all over Greece, from all 13 geographical regions, but also from schools abroad, specifically from Germany and Cyprus, participated in the action. The poster exhibitions as a culmination of the students' week took place in Athens and Thessaloniki.
This is a collaboration between Lidl Hellas and ActionAid. In order to achieve the action for both school years, the educational sector of ActionAid and the Corporate Responsibility department of Lidl Hellas worked closely together on the educational packages of the action, which were submitted to the Institute of Educational Policy of the Ministry of Education for approval of the content. The implementation of the programme was based on the cooperation and participation of the teachers from the school classes that registered to participate.
Lidl Hellas employees had the opportunity to participate in the selection of the winning posters by voting in the internal communication media for the poster of their choice in the context of the Student Poster Contest within the framework of the action for the school year 2023-2024.
Following a healthy diet is something you learn from an early age. Through this initiative, Lidl Hellas is putting children and teenagers at the centre as the most decisive factors in changing eating habits on the road to a better tomorrow for all of us and future generations.
Lidl Hellas' entire corporate responsibility strategy is aligned with ESG criteria and at the same time contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The "Power on your plate" programme is part of Lidl Hellas' broader sustainability strategy and specifically in the field of "Good for people", with health advocacy as a key pillar, while the action is also aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Goals 3 (Good health and well-being), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action).