Interactive Learning Kitchen Caux Conference Center 2012

The Caux Conference Center is known internationally for the openness, cultural inquisitiveness, social solidarity, and mutual respect shared by the full-time staff, participants, interns, volunteers, trainees, and students alike. This can be most clearly seen in the mutually warmhearted approach to maintaining the center, especially with respect to food service in the kitchen, dining room, and during the afternoon teas. Food and beverage production is deeply rooted in peoples traditions, social conditions, personal lives, and strongly impacts their willingness and ability to change. Starting with farming and food processing, but also including domestic and international trade, issues such as food sovereignty, sustainability, equal opportunities, and good governance are closely linked to the Four Moral Absolutes introduced by Initiatives of Change (IofC) almost a century ago. Considering the large number of individuals who work in the Caux kitchen and dining room, the idea was born during the Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy (TIGE) conference 2011 to use this shared experience to deal with some of the pressing issues facing us all today.

These include:
1) The working conditions of the farmers and industrial workers who produce the products we consume from the global South, e.g. coffee, tea, sugar, spices, chocolate; this concept is often referred to as Fair Trade. 2) Food Sovereignty and the conditions of the local and regional producers of fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, bread, etc. in Switzerland and surrounding region. 3) Cauxs carbon footprint and the environmental impact of the food we consume; highlighting Organic Farming. 4) A sustainable approach to food and beverage production, processing, and consumption is based on the three Rs, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. 5) Culture is part of our heritage, part of our identity. When we change, our approach to our Cultural Heritage changes; our respect for traditional ways of growing, processing, and consuming food changes. 6) Industrially produced, commercially distributed, and mass marketed products are part of our daily lives. Corporate Social Responsibility and corporate good governance go hand-in-hand in helping consumers make wise and responsible purchasing decisions. 7) The global economy has accelerated the Multicultural Development of our communities and thus our foods and eating habits. Religious and cultural diversity have enriched all our lives and helped us learn mutual respect. The kick-off phase of the Caux Conference Center Learning Kitchen project will take place during the summer of 2012. Initiated by speakers and participants of the TIGE 2011, it will combine the rich local

traditions we all bring with us to Caux with the knowledge and expertise we can offer based on our respective professional, activist, and business backgrounds.

Project proposals:
The goal is to combine as many of the seven issues as possible in one well rounded and unique activity. The following project activities have been proposed and planned so far: - Local cuisine: dishes based on traditional recipes from the participants countries or regions of origin will be prepared as part of the meals at Caux. The kitchen staff and the Learning Kitchen volunteers will introduce the diners to the dishes cultural origins, the working conditions and environmental impact of the farmers who produced the crops, and how these dishes fit into a globalized and multicultural world community. - Ramadan iftar and suhoor: Dishes linked to the breaking of the fast and the meal before beginning the daily fast will be presented and non-fasting participants will be invited to join those fasting for a day or two. Here, the Fair Trade and Sustainability issues involved will be integrated into this multicultural and interfaith experience.

In order to help mainstream the Learning Kitchen project, the full-time Caux conference center staff has coordinated with the organizers of various TIGE workstreams, in particular the workstream 2, Food and the New Development Paradigm. Many of the interns, volunteers, trainees, and students (Caux scholars) have also been contacted in order to encourage them to participate and make this part of both their training and daily work shifts. Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous and Hasan Youness, Notre Dame University Lebanon TIGE Workstream 2

2011 Proposal
Since hundreds of conference participants and interns work in food service each year at Caux, highlighting how the foods and beverages used in the Caux kitchen are produced will make the spirit of Caux more evident. Meal preparation and service can highlight several key issues, including: 1.) The origin of foods and beverages from global south, e.g. coffee, tea, chocolate, etc. 2.) The origin of local fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, and breads, etc. 3.) The level of industrial processing involved in packaged foods Thus working in the Kitchen and eating in the dining room will originally spread the Spirit of Caux. This might be achieved via adopting fair trade products. Presented by: Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous and Hasan Youness TIGE August 2011