Healthy and ethnic diet for inclusion” is a two-year Erasmus+ co-funded project that promotes healthy eating based on traditional food from different ethnic cuisines. The main target groups come from various backgrounds including refugees, immigrants and local long-term unemployed, who wish to develop their food and cooking skills and interact in a multinational and inter/ multicultural environment. The coordinator of the project is the Vardakeios School of Hermoupolis (Syros, Greece), and partner organisations are: Danmar Computers LLC (Rzeszów, Poland), Diciannove Società Cooperativa (Genoa, Italy), Institute of Technology Tralee (Tralee, Ireland) and Merseyside Refugee Support Network (Liverpool, UK). This project idea was developed from the combined experience of all partners working with different groups, for example: immigrants, refugees/asylum seekers, travellers and local unemployed people in educational, wellbeing support or integration programmes. The results of this work revealed that the direct and active involvement of individuals with different cultural backgrounds in activities such as cooking/language learning/ICT opens up a route to empowerment and, through the sharing of experiences, this inspires inclusion and integration. Furthermore, using authentic recipes values the participants’ home culture which will have a positive effect on their identity.

[1] funded by the European Commission, the Greek National Agency I.K.Y within the Erasmus+ Programme Cooperation for Innovation & the Exchange of Good Practices, Strategic Partnerships for adult education.