Mini-marathon and Awareness walk against Food Waste held at AIT

A 2.6 KM mini-marathon and an awareness walk against food waste was organised in Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) on 13th November, 2016 . The events are organised as part of the global campaign initiative Save Food. SAVE FOOD is a joint initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Messe Düsseldorf and interpack.

The initiative has two interesting stages: pre- and post-campaign. During the pre-campaign stage, the amount of food waste was collected at each facility (Student Union SU Cafeteria and SU snackbar), separating the waste into different categories and weighing them. Couple of months in-between the post-campaign stage, various events to support the initiative are being organised. Besides mini-marathon and awareness walk, Dr. Anil Kumar Anal, Associate Professor from Food Engineering and Bio-process Technology Field of Study (FOS) also mentioned about 3 minutes e-poster competition, speech as well as essay competition in a week or so. Fun week ahead 🙂 A similar action of collecting the food waste in each facility and separating into categories and weighing will be done during the post-campaign. The result shall reflect the influence and the impact of the activities. The campaign aims for zero food waste in AIT. Also, a workshop will be organised that will embrace the presence of food vendors, students, representative from FAO and as well as Save Food.

Food waste has been a major problem for quite a long time. According to Save Food, one third of all food is either wasted or lost – an amount that would be enough to meet global food needs. Now imagine how much food have you been wasting even though little bit of every now and then seems quite normal to us. Thanks to Dr. Abha Mishra, director of Asian Center of Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (ACISAI), Dr. Anil, Dr. Avishek Datta, my friend Mr. Lavaraj Devkota as well as all the seen and unseen hands for raising awareness on this important topic to the community. The zero food waste directly complies with the ZERO HUNGER Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Here’s the picture-based summary of the mini-marathon and awareness walk.

Registration Team helping in the registration and explaining the rules. Free T-Shirt printing the theme of the initiative was distributed to all the participants in the mini-marathon.

Towards Zero Food Waste – YAY

My friend Lavaraj explaining about how food waste effects many lives around us, about the initiative by AIT and explains about the rules and regulations for the mini-marathon and the awareness walk.

The event saw significant participation from faculty member, staffs as well as students. Running in the first row from L to R: Dr John K M Kuwornu, Associate Professor in the Agri-Business Management (ABM) Field of Study, Dr. Abha Mishra, Dr. Anil and Dr. Avishek.

Faculty on the first row followed by the beautiful ladies on the second row 😉

That’s us after faculty and ladies already started running. Dr. Anil joins us again 😉

When you run, run for ZERO FOOD WASTE

I took this opportunity to do some running. The event was fruitful for me as I also got opportunities with like-minded people to discuss about the work as well.

After finishing the marathon, everyone of us are pretty tired but hey, prize distribution is up 🙂

Women’s category winner from L to R: Ms. Upeakshika Bandara (SL) second position, Ms.Marilyn Alacantra (PH) first position and Ms. Buddhika Ranasinghe (SL) third position with the faculty.

Men’s category winner from L to R: Mr. Mishkat Ullah (IN) second position, Mr. Thushara Chandrasekara (SL) first position and Mr. Arun Kumar Wilson (IN) third position with the faculty.

In addition to first three winners, seven more winners (fourth to tenth position) were also awarded with selfie stick gift on both men’s and women’s category.

Dr. Anil concluding the event and informing about the upcoming events for the ZERO FOOD WASTE initiative.

A group photo with the participants, winners, faculty, staff and organizer before we disperse.