Dr. Stellah Mukhovi to Establish a Virtual Food Sustainability Academy at UoN

Dr. Stellah Mukhovi has won a Transformation Acceleration Grant (TAG) from Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) to establish a Virtual Food Sustainability Academy (VFSA). The project will be implemented in four countries; Kenya (University of Nairobi), Nigeria (University of Nigeria), Colombia (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), Bolivia (COMPAS), and Switzerland (University of Bern).

The Virtual Food Sustainability Academy (VFSA) is a network and online platform of old and new partners related to the FOODASAF project (Towards Food Sustainability: Reshaping the Coexistence of Different Food Systems in South America and Africa). Based on the identified need of a modular university education program for students, academics, and practitioners such as government extension officers and NGO officers, the VFSA provides training materials and implements courses on participatory food sustainability assessments and co-creating transformative actions.

The VFSA focuses on the elaboration, application and dissemination of open-access training on the FoodSAF tool for its empirical application through virtual-practical university courses on sustainable food systems with partners of the r4d network in Latin America and Africa. The VSFA applies a three-step “TIC-TAC-TEP”-methodology (Technologies of Information and Communication, Technologies for Learning and Knowledge, and Technologies of Empowerment and Participation), and a “Dialogue of Knowledge”-approach.

The Virtual Food Sustainability Academy will contribute to the achievement of SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production by training champions who can spread and apply the food sustainability approach beyond where the r4d project has been able to reach, and will contribute to the UN global agenda for sustainable food systems while at the same time enhancing skills and opportunities for food systems transformations.