The UN Secretary General will convene a Food System Summit on 23 September 2021 as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. With the objective to enable voices from adolescent girls and boys from Nepal, UNICEF ensured a partnership with The Social Changemakers and Innovators (SOCHAI), a youth led organization, to convene a food system dialogue with adolescents on 10 July 2021. UNICEF and SOCHAI followed UN Food Systems Workshop manual developed by  Young and Resilient Research Center at Western Sydney University to ensure engagement and meaningful participation of adolescents from Nepal in UN Food System Summit dialogue.

Main theme of the dialogue was to explore the  children’s and adolescents’ perceptions and lived experiences of their food systems, focusing on the issues of food poverty and climate change. In the low and middle income country (LMIC) like Nepal, adolescent girls and boys are not enjoying healthy choices for the nutritious food mainly due to lack of availability, accessibility, affordability and utilization of these foods at the nearest market place, community and family. On the other hand, Government policies yet have to made farmer friendly so that these items can be available in affordable prices and sound condition. Excess use of insecticide, pesticide and chemical fertilizers are  also challenging in the country like Nepal, followed by environmental degradation due to left over food from family. The power of decentralized Government System to create sustainable food system yet have to fully utilized. The workshop aimed to make realization over it and raise voices with the national and global leader to take corrective action.

Workshop followed a process of partnership at both national and global level with Western Sydney University and SOCHAI. Western Sydney University trained facilitators from SOCHAI to implement  workshops (poverty focus and climate change focus) simultaneously with adolescents aged 10-19 years using the tools like MIRO board and Zoom platform. SOCHAI recruited 23 adolescents (Male 8 and Female 15) from a variety of socio-economic, cultural, and geographic backgrounds. Using facility of breakrooms, facilitators of SOCHAI organized independent dialogue with two small teams.  Dialogue activities were designed to  safeguard the interest of children and allow participants to freely explore ideas and conversations. Principles of engagement was fully followed taking reference of  workshop facilitation manuals which contain guidance on recruitment of children, ethical and child safeguarding procedures, and detailed instructions for implementing creative and participatory activities with diverse children. At the end of workshop, facilitators shared their MIRO notes and compiled the reports to share with global audience in the Food System Summit, 2021.