Like every year for five years now there will be an international foodsharing festival in Germany.
So far it was mostly called ‘international’ because it also had foodsavers from Austria and Switzerland. Last year a handful of Polish foodsavers visited as well. But this year we want to host a real international meetup and we want you to take part! 
Here’s what the festival is about:
One third of all food produced is thrown away every year even though a big part of it is still edible. At the same time there’s a billion people starving worldwide.
The foodsharing festival is meant to raise awareness for the issue of food waste and encourage everybody to do their part as well - because it matters.This year we chose the slogan ‘Living change’ for the foodsharing festival. We will meet again at Malzfabrik in Berlin and look into changed consumer habits and alternatives together.
From August 16 to 18 there will be around 600 people meeting every day to engage in workshops, seminars cooking sessions, info stands, music, yoga and much more - all in the name of living change, fighting food waste and making the world a better place for everybody, and all free of charge.
The team that has been working tirelessly for months to make the festival happen consists of volunteers only and all the money needed for an event at this scale was donated.
We invite whoever is interested to come by and take part, be it a foodsharing veteran or complete newbie! All visitors get the chance to exchange ideas, network between each other and spend an amazing weekend together. Everybody is welcome!
There is already some interest from Italian and Spanish groups and we will have an international meetup on that festival. It will probably take place on Saturday August 17 and give us the chance to meet as many international foodsavers as possible!
I will host this event and this is what I wrote for the program:
Some words about me:
- I have been working on spreading the idea of foodsharing internationally for three years now, be it by writing emails, compiling websites or traveling and making personal connections. I live in Kanthaus, close to Leipzig with many other people who are putting all of their energy into preventing waste and promoting sharing. Find out more about foodsaving worldwide and Kanthaus online: https://foodsaving.world and https://kanthaus.online
This is the idea of my workshop:
- I want to give an overview of the diversity of foodsharing groups in Germany and beyond - governance structures, communication patterns and regular activities can differ quite a lot. Then we will collect and discuss common problems that can be found in basically every foodsharing group and the different ideas of how to resolve them. There will be time to exchange ideas and compare experiences to strengthen the bonds between the different nodes in the worldwide foodsaving network.
This workshop is meant for foodsavers who are 1) part of or acquainted to a group that is not German-speaking, 2) wanting to help us spread foodsharing to more places, or 3) interested in the international situation.My perception of this year’s slogan ‘living change’:
- Living change means to stop compromising. It means to get active, to join a group or, if necessary, become a pioneer who inspires others to recognize (and maybe even embrace) the alternative lifestyle that is needed for sustainable change. It means to stop making excuses and to start behaving in a way that makes it possible for future generations to live on this planet after us.
I’d love to see all of you there, but I know that this is quite unlikely… 
Still, I hope that this event is interesting to you and that some of you can actually make it. Unfortunately we cannot compensate for travel costs, but as soon as you arrived you will have no further expenses since the festival itself and the food there is completely free of charge for all attendees! If you want to camp on the festival grounds it’s 10€ per person for the weekend, but you can also try to find accommodation via couchsurfing, trustroots, bewelcome or personal contacts - I’d happily try and help with that!