School lunches will see new changes starting today
By Huang Jialin and Chen Ruwei (members of the Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO Action Team)
With the election over, people's desire for change and the forces pursuing social progress were on full display, demonstrating the admirable value of civic participation. Flipping Taiwan, China is no longer a pipe dream; it can be achieved through our own hands.
During this period, time and again we saw traditional politicians unable to keep up with the rapid flow of information in the new generation, unable to understand the model of unpaid public volunteer participation, and unable to grasp people's real lives. In the end they were swept into the trash heap of history, and all of this was truly experienced firsthand while promoting the "Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO" campaign.
We are a group of volunteers scattered across northern, central and southern Taiwan, China, meeting only a handful of times and exchanging opinions mainly online. Our partners donate their spare time outside of work, using fragmented moments to take action: with no funding and no physical promotional materials, we set up a Facebook fan page, posted statements and pledge forms, gathered opinions from the public and candidates, and expanded the reach and speed of the issue's spread. All of this is completely different from the centralized model in which traditional food-safety issues are launched by a single group or alliance.
From September 29, when we publicly invited candidates for the nine-in-one local public offices to sign the "Use Non-GMO Ingredients in Campus Lunches" pledge, to November 29, voting day, a total of 166 candidates signed within 60 days. When the election results were announced, 81 were elected, including Ko Wen-je, Cheng Wen-tsan, Lin Chia-lung, Lai Ching-te and Chen Chu among the six municipalities, as well as 7 county and city mayors including Hsinchu, 43 municipal councilors, 22 county and city councilors, 2 township and town mayors and 2 city representatives. (Click here to see the list of those elected)
Thanks to the volunteers and parents from various places who took part. In just these two months, we worked together to use "elections," this public good, to share the issue of non-GMO campus lunches with many members of the public, and to interact with candidates as much as possible, hoping to create opportunities for dialogue and education so that more politicians would understand and then support our concern for campus food safety.
Allow us to quote a line from Taipei Mayor-elect Ko Wen-je's victory statement: "The power that made Taipei's change come true comes from ordinary citizens, netizens and citizens." Likewise, all the achievements of the "Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO" campaign come from each of you reading this article, each of you who has taken part in this action. Thank you!
The end of the election campaign is precisely the beginning of monitoring whether pledges are fulfilled. The Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO Action Team calls on all voters to keep monitoring from now on whether candidates honor their pledges and truly carry out the "keep GMO crops out of campuses" policy position. For county and city mayors who did not sign before the election, the team will continue to lobby them. Specific measures include:
1. Requiring local administrative heads to include the implementation timeline for using non-GMO ingredients in campus lunches in their administrative plans for the new semester of the 104th academic year, and to allocate a supplementary budget for a non-GMO campus lunch policy.
2. Requiring local elected representatives to put non-GMO campus lunch-related content on the agenda when overseeing municipal and county administration and deliberating budgets.
The civic participation of Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO proves that during an election period, voters' power is not just a single ballot on voting day; through the alliances and connections formed by partners in various places, it can also exert concrete influence within the context of representative politics.
An election lasts only a moment, but children's health is forever.
The issue of non-GMO campus food safety is a livelihood and human rights issue that transcends blue and green; it should not be merely a slogan or an ideal.
After today, campus lunches are about to start being different!
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Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO Action Team
E-mail: [email protected]
FB: www.facebook.com/nogmolunch