Co-Creating Sustainable Food Systems - Learning with Communities of Practice in Zimbabwe

This book presents a collection of “stories of change” that relate to the topic of food systems in Zimbabwe. They were created as participatory digital stories - initially in audio or video format - and have been presented here in text and illustrated formats, with QR codes embedded to enable the reader to listen to or watch the original stories online and access translated audio files. The stories belong to and are told by the storytellers, in an authentic voice and from the position of lived experience. They were shared and created within the context of participatory workshop programmes that were designed to build participants’ capacity, in terms of storytelling and audio-visual production skills, for people involved in sustainable/community food organisations. Two online courses in “Story-telling and basic audio-visual production to support food system transformation processes” were provided, with the support of PELUM Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Good Food Festival. The online workshop programmes were designed and facilitated by Pamela Richardson and the co-research team to support participants in sharing their stories and using audio/video more effectively, as a tool to communicate, to learn, to document and exchange information around issues related to food system transformations in Zimbabwe. The courses were practical and interactive, creating a space for knowledge exchange between participating communities and organisations. While participants were supported to build their digital communication skills, the workshops provided opportunities for people who care about food systems to meet and exchange ideas about sustainable practices. The stories that were shared, and then worked on, were part of a co-creative and generative process, whereby participants offered supportive feedback to each other as revised versions of the stories were shared over the weeks. In addition to running online workshop programmes between 2022 and 2024, we worked with partners at Kufunda Village and PORET Trust to develop an in-person “story-circle” methodology, which resulted in the co-development of 10 stories of change from these two communities. With more that 50 stories of change harvested over the months of workshopping, the idea for this book was conceived, as a way to share, integrate and connect the stories. We have organised them around key thematic areas and we use these themes to structure the book into the following chapters: Soil; Seeds; Water; We are what we eat (or, health); Resilience; Social justice; Food Sovereignty; Communities of learning; Visions for the Future, and; Co-creating Change. Each section presents a summary of what we have learned, then a few stories that relate directly to each theme and some related policy recommendations. The storytellers wish for their stories to be openly available for others to learn from and consented to their images and digital stories to be shared. The project has ethical approval (#049537).