Hello! My name is Oliver, and I am part of a student group at University College Utrecht. We will be working in collaboration with Ineke on a project about supporting residents of Lunetten, Utrecht in helping each other eat more sustainably and healthy on a budget.

Our project is an “action research” project, which prioritizes community engagement and a bottom-up, grassroots approach. There are already many top-down approaches to projects in Utrecht, such as when the municipality or other organizations conduct research or take action without consulting and involving the community in the entire process. We want to be a part of bridging this gap in a spirit of collaboration and co-creation that uplifts the community members’ perspectives and focuses on the issues that they find important.

Last Thursday, our group met with Ineke to get to know the neighborhood of Lunetten better. We first met at the community center de Musketon to chat and then walked all around Lunetten. As we walked around, we saw the Winkelcentrum Lunetten, the neighborhood health center (Wijkgezondheidscentrum), the city farm Koppelsteede, and the allotment garden ATV Utrecht-Zuid. We also learned about various community events including social lunches and dinners. 

This is the first of a series of blogs about our progress! We will take turns writing about our experiences every week as the project unfolds.