A Close-up Look: Food Justice Focused Social Services Route

Location: Sisli, Istanbul

Facilitator: Alper Yiğit Yılmaz

Organizer: Şişli Municipality

Language: Turkish

Date / Time: October 6, 14:00-17:00

This on-site learning route is part of the "A Close-up Look" series, which aims to facilitate mutual learning among municipalities and enable practitioners to examine successful projects on-site. The route has been specially designed for practitioners working in municipalities' social services and food-related departments.

This learning route focuses on three food-based social service programs implemented by Şişli Municipality:

1. The Food Bank:This service point involves the storage and distribution of conditional and unconditional donations such as food, hygiene products, stationery, toys, household items, and fuel materials to individuals residing within the Şişli Municipality boundaries who have been identified as experiencing socio-economic problems following a social investigation. The service point also utilizes funds from the municipal budget.

2. Neighborhood Kitchens:Şişli Municipality's Neighborhood Kitchens is the first application center that supports women's employment and professional development through practical kitchen workshops. It encourages cooperatives within the framework of applied kitchen workshops to provide access to healthy and reliable food in local governments. The goal is to establish production kitchens in neighborhoods where setting up their own kitchen, processing safe food, and forming their own local teams is implemented to achieve access to healthy living and nutrition through education and workshop activities.

3. Soup Kitchen: The Soup Kitchen provides two hot meals a day to families who have difficulty meeting their basic needs due to natural and/or man-made disasters and to individuals who have been identified as elderly, ill, or disabled and reside within the boundaries of Şişli District. The Soup Kitchen provides 2,000-3,000 meals to those in need daily. In addition, in case of an emergency, the Soup Kitchen has the capacity to produce meals for 5,000 people.

Notes:

The tour will commence in front of the Istanbul Congress Center.

All participants are required to be present in the area by 13:30 with their tour tickets.

Shuttles will be available to transport participants to the starting point of the route.