Hello! We are back with some great updates of our progress in the project. This week was especially important because our community partner gave us a tour of the Broadway Youth Resource Centre (BYRC) facilities. This was very beneficial to all the group members because it gave a better idea of how the center is run and the many programs that running there. Since we will mostly be dealing with numbers, it was nice to see a different side of the center. We felt that a visit would be very beneficial as it would provide insight and a concrete image of everything the centre offers and the services they provide.
Furthermore, we were also given the financial files for the food expenditures between January to April of last year. Through receiving financial files we are now able to start our main objective of analyzing them. In order to do so, we will proceed to one of this week’s objectives: to determine our methods of analyzing the financial information, and how the work will be split up between group members to maximize accuracy and efficiency.
Visiting the Broadway Youth Resource Centre also gave us insight to the amount of youth who depend on the programs and resources they offer. It is exactly relatable to the podcast The Fish Bank where Jensi Sartin talks about Bali’s coral reef and how many people depend on it to live. He mentions that many people just see it as being beautiful and a recreational place but that many locals actually rely on it to feed their family and send their kids to school. The coral reef can be compared to the BYRC, where many youth depend on it to thrive and rely on BYRC’s resources. They depend on it for school, food, shelter, employment, and so much more. This is why our job is so important in helping BYRC analyze their financial trends so that they can make sustainable changes that will only continue to improve the center instead of depleting it like the coral reef in Bali. As Sartin mentions that it is not as it used to be and it is getting depleted, which means that less and less families can live of the coral and are struggling.
So what?
During our visit at the BYRC many members expressed excitement and enthusiasm towards our project, hoping our results will provide major insight to their budgeting and spending. As mentioned in our previous blog post, none of our members have previous knowledge in food marketing analysis. Though this will create some difficulty, our group plans on contacting faculty members or consulting our peers to gain insight on how to analyze financial data. Our visit with the BYRC also provided us information on a few additional partner programs such as LOVE, and the Youth Health and Counselling Clinic. Through witnessing how the BYRC is run, including how food is prepared and served, we also learned the importance of budgeting and managing funds to the BYRC. This insight gave us an understanding of the potential this project has to not only help the BYRC understand their spendings on food, but may also lead to future potential projects to reform their food system. Instead of serving one meal three times a week to a few of those in need and rotating by apartment floor, they may be able to serve hot meals to everyone three times a week.
What’s Next?
Now that we have the financial files, we will begin to work on compiling the data and finding out what we can learn from it by identifying their spending trends, finding out where they buy the ingredients, as well as what type of food do they buy: organic, processed, carbohydrates, meat, among others.
Our upcoming objectives are relatable to “Grandma Mahembe’s Farm” podcast, by Lindiwe Majele Sibanda. In the podcast, Sibanda reminds us of how globalization affects our food choices and therefore, our health. In these days, we often eat outside and consume more of unhealthy food, such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and processed food, resulting in high risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. We are so glad to help BYRC know where they are spending their money on food, so in the future, they will be able to prevent these diseases by cutting down the purchase of unhealthy food and serving more of nutritious and healthier food.
To achieve our upcoming objectives, we will be in contact with our community partner to see if we can ask questions with some of the chefs in charge of the feeding programs. This will be arranged by, either setting up a time to go back to BYRC to conduct an interview or to send questions by e-mail.
We will update again soon with more progress on our project!
-Group 12