Name: Bayo Maathey

Social Justice Group: 2021-2022, Access to Healthy Foods

Date of Fieldwork: February 17, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):

Type of Fieldwork:

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On Thursday, Feb 17, my group and I (Atticus Barocas and Theo Cornick) met with “lauren Ornelas” from the Food Empowerment Project. We talked about access to healthy food and the lack of general access to grocery stores. The Food Empowerment Projects’ mission is to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power of one’s food choices. We encourage healthy food choices that reflect a more compassionate society by spotlighting the abuse of animals on farms, the depletion of natural resources, unfair working conditions for produce workers, and the unavailability of healthy foods in low-income areas. She spoke on the systemic relation to food injustices and how it needs to be more shown in the media. She spoke on her personal views and how she suggests veganism to people. The main areas they work are San Jose, California. They have goals for different states and different approaches to those certain states. This is very crucial to our project because it gives us an idea one what is truly happening when it comes to access to healthful and nutritious food. The Food Empowerment was founded in 2007 and is still doing important work till this day.

For me listening to lauren was very informative and interesting to hear. She talked about what the Food Empowerment Project does and how it’s completely the same as what we believed their values to be. It was very beneficial to our group I believe because it still relates to my group’s topic which was a very broad category at the time. In fact it helped us specify what it is we are truly trying to help. Overall it was a great experience and I’m excited to continue this research.