After much hard work, including an intensive but really informative bootcamp, the Food Bridge's new project Vyakulani Africa is  finally accepted into the 2024 Impetus Accelerator program for citizen scientists!

Vyakulani is a Swahili word that represents the essence of our new citizen scientists project; with the dual connotation of "in the food" or "which food," thus reflecting the internal and external factors driving this study.

Despite Belgium's historical ties with Africa and a well-established African diaspora community, there is a notable lack of knowledge regarding African cuisine beyond this community. It is thus imperative to delve deeper into the factors contributing to this knowledge gap.

Our citizen scientist program will collect data on African food legacy in Belgium, the sustainability of home recipes and diets, including their transmission across generations and potential benefits for larger society (European citizens). The program will be implemented inAntwerp and Brussels.

We will use citizen scientists for data collection, organize outreach activities such as  infosession, cooking demonstrations, food tastings, seminars, campaigns, and later make the project results available to the public. The program will run from July to December 2024

This project is an initiative of the Food Bridge vzw in partnership with Diaspofood ULB, Sankaa vzw and others, funded by the Impetus Accelerator Program.