It was an unforgettable experience enjoying art, history, sustainable education and good food.
This could be a representative statement to describe the participation of the CPIA of Udine Team in the SHU2024 (Social Hackathon Umbria 2024). An experience started at school, with training on environmental sustainability and food education, continued in the preparation of recipes and video tutorials on intercultural salads and was finally enriched by this journey in the green heart of Italy, discovering the charming medieval town of Bevagna.
The first day we attended the opening ceremony of the social hackathon in the local theater and immediately after we set up the teamwork under the supervision of our team leader Cristiano Longobardo. We were a multicultural team: CPIA teachers and students, our Spanish and Portuguese partners, the councillor Federico Pirone of the Municipality of Udine and professor Lucia Piani from the University of Udine. Discussing together we underlined the importance of the theme of well-being, seen in its three dimensions: social, mental and physical. As a consequence, we thought that sharing the work done in our school on intercultural salads and food education could be a key to success in the competition.
During the days of SHU24 we have developed a web app to share recipes and video tutorials of salads, also creating a map to select recipes from around the world, making the sharing of food from different regions of the world a pleasant and user-friendly experience. This app was also thought of for social purposes, to give a perspective of integration and inclusion of migrant people on a European scale. For this reason, the web app integrates a section on community, that contains video and pictures, that move beyond traditional salad recipes.
In addition to the work on the web app, a truly incredible event was the workshop on salads, planned on 5th Friday morning, where our students have stroke many curious visitors with their intercultural salads, sharing joy, beauty and happiness as you can see in this video:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9FUOwRNimC/?igsh=bzI2c2J4ZGN5cjZo
For our students it was important and significant to immerse themselves in a new challenge like a social Hackathon, understanding the value of team spirit and the importance of social communication. Between a moment of work and the other we could also enjoy the company of our Spanish and Portuguese partners, and together we contemplated the extraordinary beauty of the Umbrian centers of Bevagna and Foligno. The Shu24 experience was also a good opportunity to get to know several people from many countries, exchanging opinions on the competing projects, and understanding better the culture and motivation of the other participants. The final day of Shu24 one of our students, Joyce Koranteng, has presented our work to the jury in her impeccable English, explaining the results achieved and the mission behind our challenge: including people from different regions of the world in realizing intercultural salads to achieve physical, mental and social well-being. Our project was not the winner, but for us the most important thing was to be protagonists in this experience in Umbria. We hope that our message and work can inspire other people, with a special focus on sustainable diets.
