Read our 2023 annual report
Concern's objectives, activities and achievements in 2023 can be found in our new annual report.
Read the report
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The Midday Snackbox: A podcast for activists
Sophie Healy-Thow is a food and nutrition activist studying International Development and Food Policy in University College Cork. She has partnered with Concern to produce 'The Midday Snackbox' – a podcast talking all things food, hunger and activism.
Through her conversations with hugely informative and interesting guests, Roger Thurow, Lawrence Haddad, Valery Molay, Cassie Hayward, Amanda Nyami and her Nan (Ellen Healy), Sophie explores what’s keeping hunger in place, what it takes to end hunger and the role of youth in creating lasting change in the world. This podcast has been produced with the support of Irish Aid.
Episode 1: Food, Power, Inequality and Youth
Sophie talks to Valery Molay a youth activist and Dr. Lawrence Haddad the executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition about power and inequality, the role of youth in building a better food system and the need to remain positive and hopeful.
Episode 2: Is 2021 the year it all changed?
Sophie continues her conversation with Lawrence and Valery, they discuss the food choices made by young people, meeting the SDGs by 2030, and asks "Do you have to be wealthy to be healthy?" They also take a look at the Food Systems Summit planned for September 2021 and how young people can get involved.
Episode 3: Covid-19 and the food system
Sophie talks to Cassie Hayward a fellow youth food system activist from Canada who talks powerfully about her own experience of food insecurity in Canada...yes Canada. They discuss lessons we need to learn from Covid-19 and its impact on our national and global food supplies...and how to avoid screaming into the void.
Episode 4: The Humming Bird and the Wild Fire
Sophie talks to Roger Thurow a former reporter with the Wall Street Journal and author of The First One Thousand Days and ‘Enough’ Hunger in an age of Plenty about the need to raise a clammer to ‘outrage and inspire’ to end world hunger. Sophie also speaks with Amamda Namayi who is a farmer and food youth activist from Kenya. She talks about how we can bring about change by ‘being’ the message and tells the inspiring story of the humming bird and the wild fire.
Episode 5: The ‘Dillon’ Loaf
Sophie talks to her Nan, Ellen Healy, who grew up on Heir Island off the coast of West Cork, about life on the island in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, farming, looking after one another, rations, carrageen moss, periwinkles, the ‘Dillon’ loaf, and her wish for less extravagance and more tolerance.
Follow Sophie's Activism
You can follow Sophie and her fantastic work in advocating for the eradication of hunger over in Instagram.
