Amuse: culinary world festival
Description
Amuse is an annual culinary world festival where Hasselt’s 4th pillar organizations with a project in the south are central. These charities serve the tastiest snacks from all over the world at 2 euros per piece. This way one supports these projects in the south and make the world a better place. We also radically choose for sustainability: no disposable cups, a waste separation system, biodegradable plates and cutlery, ... Since 2018, we also completely dedicated Amuse to the SDGs! They connect the different projects, the fair trade story and motivate our choice to make Amuse as sustainable as possible..
Amuse is Hasselt’s international solidarity’s celebratory moment: many citizens from Hasselt are active for or in the South! We must propagate what is going well in the world because development cooperation is also a positive story. The Hasselt 4th pillar organizations and NGO's have the opportunity to introduce themselves to the general public by selling snacks at democratic prices. Their sales profit goes entirely to their project in the South. This way we also try to create some commitment with the inhabitants of our city.<br />
We have linked the event to the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals. This is the connection between the various projects, the fair trade story and our choice to make Amuse as sustainable as possible. One of the eyecatchers of the event was the colourful SDG-wall which also made the SDGs visible across the entire site. We want to present Amuse as a coherent and consistent SDG-minded project. It is important that the visitors can easily comprehend this coherence. We also used the SDGs in our communication about the event.<br />
All charities present have a project for/in the South that can be linked to 1 or more SDGs. This was made visible at their sales stand. Furthermore, the seating areas for the visitors were furnished with SDG seats, there were large SDG posters and people could sign up as an 'SDG follower'. In short, the SDGs were very visible and easily accessible on Amuse. This was a first introduction to the SDGs for many of the thousands of visitors. In this way we have made the theme known to a wider audience.<br />
The Hasselt city council wants to help shape the 17 development goals set by the UN in the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 from the local policy level, and signed the commitment statement 'Global Goals, Local Focus' on 19/05/2016. This action fits within all 17 objectives.
The SDGs are the connection between all exhibitors at Amuse.
During a large SDG exercise with these exhibitors, we showed them which development goals can be linked to their project. This convinced the participants of the usefulness of the SDGs. All SDGs could be linked to 1 or more projects.
In our promotion we made 3 different posters with 3 different SDGs with the message why people had to come to our event (e.g. taste the world bite for bite and fight against plastic soup).
To our suppliers and external parties we brought the same story: that we choose to be radically sustainable in our choice of materials, decoration, food, ... That was also very well received and often the suppliers were looking for creative solutions to fit their product into the SDG story. For example, there was the a workshop for children where they made crafts and made music instruments with garbage material. This was received very positively by our visitors!
On the site we created an SDG Wall, with all the SDGs with their complete explanation. People could leave their name on a large board to indicate their support to the SDGs.
An evaluation afterwards showed that the SDG-wall was a success and that many visitors really took the time to read this, and also asked the exhibitors for further explanation. For us it a main goal to introduce visitors to the importance of the SDGs. Of course we will do this again at our next edition! We noticed that the exhibitors try to frame their activities or projects within the SDGs.
The fact that our festival is a well known festival, visited by thousands of people, is our main enabling condition. We had the same financial resources (support?) as we had for the earlier editions and didn’t had to use a lot of extra financial resources for implementing the SDGs.
The fact that we will organize the 9th edition this year proves that there is an interest among the citizens of Hasselt, both in sustainability and in development cooperation.
We make the projects more sustainable as a city by giving them the support when necessary, by bringing them together in public consultation, by networking platforms and by ensuring that their projects receive the necessary attention.
Through the event, the projects also receive financial support of the visitors . The exhibitors ask 2 euros per snack, the proceeds go directly to their project in the south. Thanks to the proceeds from their snacks sales, the 4th pillars and NGOs can make their activities in the south more sustainable.
We experienced that our event Amuse is a good initiative to make the SDGs more know to the bigger audience. The SDGs are the larger connection between our various projects, the fair trade story and our choice to make Amuse as sustainable as possible.<br />
Apart from that, the SDGs literally coloured our event: the 17 different SDG-colours made it a warm, cosy and colourful place.
https://desmaakvandehoreca.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/in-beeld-amuse-2018…
https://www.groenhasselt.be/amuse_2018_eerste_hasselts_evenement_zonder…
https://www.groenhasselt.be/amuse_2018_was_een_waar_feest_met_veel_lef
https://www.hbvl.be/cnt/dmf20180610_03553808/wereldfeest-amuse-met-7-00…
https://www.hbvl.be/cnt/dmf20180607_03551191/amuse-weert-plastic-bekers…
SDGS & Targets
Deliverables & Timeline
Resources mobilized
Partnership Progress
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Feedback
Action Network
![SDG Good Practices First Call](/sites/default/files/2021-12/goodp1.jpg)
![Smart](/themes/custom/porto/assets/smart_off.png)
Timeline
Entity
Region
- Europe
Geographical coverage
Website/More information
Countries
![Belgium Belgium](/sites/default/files/stakeholders/flagbig6_8.jpg)
Contact Information
Iris Van den Bossche, expert equal opportunities