Justice and International Mission Convention 2024

Give us this day our daily bread – Food and Social Justice

Justice and International Mission Convention 2024

When: Saturday 5 October, 9 am – 4:15 pm

Where: Centre for Theology and Ministry, 29 College Crescent, Parkville

Cost: $40 Metropolitan/ $25 Concession and Rural and Regional/$10 online (morning sessions only)

Food is an integral part of our life in our Christian Communities. There are many social justice dimensions to what we eat. These include:

• Making sure everyone has enough healthy food to eat;
• Impacts on climate change, with emissions related to food making up a third of global greenhouse gas emissions;
• Multinational food corporations that put their profits ahead of people’s health;
• Fair employment conditions for those that produce our food; and,
• Not stigmatising people for their weight when ultra-processed foods are designed to be addictive.

Large food corporations are producing unhealthy and addictive food products that drive up unhealthy food consumption. The foods in question cause various health problems, including obesity, cancer, heart disease and depression. Ultra-processed foods have been progressively tailored by scientists and technicians through combinations of sugar, salt, fat and flavour enhancers to bypass our natural mechanisms of appetite control.

More than half the global population will be living with being overweight or obese within 12 years if prevention, treatment and support do not improve.

Clearing forests for farms and ranches comprised 29% of the food-related greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, strategies by food corporations to drive up food consumption and obesity also impact global greenhouse gas emissions.

The Convention will explore the social justice dimensions of food production and how to incorporate them into the church's life.

Keynote speaker - Jonathan Cornford

Jonathan is one of the founders of the community group Manna Gum. He has a background in international development, working for a decade as an advocacy coordinator for Oxfam Australia, focussing on natural resource management and international financial institutions in the Mekong region. Jonathan also lived and worked for three years as a mission coordinator for Urban Seed in the heart of Melbourne. He has Ph.Ds in Political Economy and Theology, and an Honours Degree in Australian History.

Panellist - Dr Sureka Goringe; National Director, Uniting World

Sureka became National Director in July 2017. Sureka’s work at UnitingWorld answers a life-long calling, weaving her global childhood, her faith, and her passion for justice with the all the skills gained through professional life.

An Australian since the nineties, Sureka comes via university in England, and a childhood in Botswana, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Sureka has Ph.D. in Materials Science, is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, is married a UCA minister, and the mother of two kids and a dog.

Panellist - Jane Martin; Executive Manager, Food for Health Alliance (FHA) and Alcohol and Obesity Programs at Cancer Council Victoria

Jane leads the Food for Health Alliance, a partnership between Cancer Council Victoria, VicHealth, and the Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE) at Deakin University. Food for Health Alliance is a leading policy and advocacy voice working to improve diets and prevent overweight and obesity in Australia, particularly for children. It advocates to governments to improve food environments – the way food is made, labelled, sold and advertised.

For more than thirty years, Jane has worked in public health advocacy, engaging in tobacco control, alcohol policy and obesity prevention. She is active in the media as a commentator and advises state and federal governments on obesity policy.

She is the Immediate Past President of ANZOS.

Panellist - Caterina Cinanni; Director of Farms at the United Workers Union

Caterina currently leads the campaign team which organises to expose slave-like conditions across the supermarket and food supply chain in Australia. The United Workers Union farm team organises thousands of permanent and temporary migrant workers from all over the world, including Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, Afghanistan, Nepal, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South Pacific and has empowered farm workers to speak out and resist against wage theft, dodgy contracting arrangement and sexual harassment and abuse. Caterina is also the Vice-President of the International Union of Food, Agricultural and Hotels Associations which fights for justice and freedom of association across the global agricultural and food supply chain and helps support independent democratic global worker union organisations. Caterina started her union journey in 1994 on the inaugural ACTU Organising Works program and spent two decade as an organiser with the National Union of Workers (NUW) and was the first woman to be elected as National President. She has worked for the ACTU Organising Centre as a national campaign organiser.

Speaker - Ivan Blacket

Ivan Blacket is a farmer, educator and designer with a focus on creating truly regenerative farming systems. He grew up on a small goat dairy on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula and, since studying agricultural sciences at Melbourne University, has managed multiple farms around Australia from agroforestry market gardens to large fruit orchards and he has a strong understanding of the current state of affairs of our food system. He has designed food systems at The Farm at Byron Bay, Conscious Ground and Common Ground Project to name a few. Along the way he has educated hundreds of aspiring farmers and homesteaders and is currently a facilitator with Permaculture for Refugees and on the committee for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Workshop Options

Please list your top three workshop options when registering. Workshops will be run based on the number of participants, and will not run if not enough participants register interest. Each workshop will aim to look for a specific way forward in each area.

The workshop options are:

1. Food and global financial poverty
2. Reducing emissions through what we eat and reducing what we throw away
3. Talking about reducing stigma around weight in congregations
4. Supporting workers in the Australian food industry from the Pacific Islands – United Workers Union
5. Campaigning for healthier food
6. Promoting healthy food in your congregation
7. Corruption in the food industry – Mark Zirnsak, Senior Social Justice Advocate, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania
8.  Protecting babies and toddlers from unhealthy foods
9. Practical tips on having a community garden at your congregation
10. The benefits of reducing meat consumption
11. Mapping Power, Growing Justice: Understanding Our Role in the Food System – Ivan Blacket, Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.

Program

9 am Gathering & Registration. Tea and coffee will be provided on arrival

9:30 am Introduction, acknowledgement of country and opening worship

9:45 am Keynote address

10:30 am Morning Tea

11 am Panel Discussion on food and social justice.

12:20 pm Lightning talks: One minute presentations about what you are doing in your church or community on social justice. Please register your interest in advance if you would like to make a presentation.

12:35 pm Lunch

1:15 pm First Round of Workshops

2:00 pm Short Break

2:15 pm Second Round of Workshops

3 pm Discussion on the direction and work areas of the JIM Cluster

4 pm Closing worship

4:15 pm Finish

Please register by Monday 23 September.

Cost: $40 for metropolitan participants

$25 concession and non-metropolitan participants.

$10 online (morning session only)

Tea/coffee and lunch included.

If you have particular access needs or need assistance to register contact:

Alicia Torres

Centre for Theology and Ministry

29 College Crescent, Parkville, Vic, 3052

Phone (03) 9340 8815

Email: Alicia.Torres@victas.uca.org.au