This year, the event focused on sharing stories, experiences and projects while rediscovering the beauty of cooperation.
Choosing to listen, to do, to be brave, to feel part of something. And, most of all, choosing to believe in an idea and to defend it passionately. ‘Choices’ is the theme of the Coop Reno’s Six Edition Bootcamp, an annual event promoted by one of the five medium cooperatives of the Coop system and that this year – for their 30th anniversary – they held it in in Florence, in one of the beautiful rooms of the Istituto degli Innocenti.
“We are here to listen to different stories” explains Andrea Mascherini, President of Coop Reno and promoter of the event. “We are here to engage with different worlds.” Food for Soul is here too – among young entrepreneurs, authors, media experts, designers and athletes – to talk about inclusion, community and social change.
Cristina Reni, Project Manager of Food for Soul, explains that Refettorios are places to meet and exchange, where ideas find the space to grow, and where the stories and experiences of volunteers, guests, chefs, architects and designers can be shared around the same table.
“Food surplus is a metaphor,” Cristina points out. “It’s an example of the resources we already have, but that we don’t use because we can’t see their hidden value.” For this reason, Food for Soul works with professionals from various fields, who use their experience and creativity to restore places and ingredients, making visible the invisible and transforming them into a welcoming, inclusive and restorative experiences.
Recovery is also at the core of Rifò, a small business project presented by Niccolò Cipriani that since 2017 has been producing high quality clothes and accessories made exclusively with regenerated textile fibers.
Osvaldo de Falco, a young Calabrian entrepreneur, has placed sustainability at the heart of his work, contributing with Biofarm to rewrite the rules of the current agri-food chain.
Food, sustainability and social change, but also communication and branding. In the era of fast communication, what we choose to say and how we say it is key. The choices we make, afterall, are the result of the information we receive and internalize every day. Vera Gheno, Bruno Mastroianni and Anna Turcato remind us of that through their presentations, just as much as Silvia Amodio does, who, through her pictures, perfectly combines ethics and aesthetics.
Different worlds, professions, stories and experiences, but with a common thread: the courage to transform ideas into projects through cooperation, sharing and exchange.
Three fundamental principles of Food for Soul that we believe are the ingredients for change. Only by working together and in synergy, we can imagine communities that are inclusive, open-minded, and eager to listen to different experiences and make them their own.
(Pictures: Gaia Borzicchi)
