SFHA and CFHS Launch Healthy Lives Publication

At a busy SFHA Tenancy Sustainment Conference at Hampden Park, Community Food and Health Scotland (CFHS) joined the SFHA to launch a new joint publication... "Health Living Tastes Better: Housing Associations and Food Cooperatives".

In launching the publication, Anne Gibson, National Development Officer for Community Food and Health Scotland spoke about the important role that housing associations and cooperatives have to play in enabling access to good quality, affordable food:

"We are delighted to launch this publication with the SFHA which showcases just some of the many initiatives that housing associations and cooperatives across Scotland are engaged with. We want to encourage more housing associations to realise their critical role in addressing health inequalities and supporting local communities to find locally-relevant solutions to local issues of poverty of poor diet."

Addressing the conference, Lynne Marshall, Tenant Participation Officer, Margaret Blackwood Housing Association explained why and how they had become involved in the East Craigs Community Food Cooperative, which is one of the case studies mentioned in the publication. Lynne highlighted the contribution that engaging in food cooperative work had made towards building community capacity and resilience, saying:

"The benefit to us of our food cooperative was seeing tenants be enabled to do things they wouldn't otherwise have done. It's also been quite a fun venture for all concerned and we would encourage others to look into developing community food cooperatives across the country for everyone's benefit."

After the launch event, David Ogilvie, Policy and Strategy Manager at the SFHA said:

"We are delighted to have had the opportunity to work with CFHS in producing this publication, and for us the timing is just right. What this publication does is underline the message that we have said in our SFHA manifesto, that housing associations and cooperatives are so much more than just landlords. Initiatives such as the ones featured in this publication make a substantial and meaningful contribution to the betterment of public health, the sustainment and cohesion of communities, and demonstrate once again the exponential impact that Wider Role funding has made over recent years."

Copies of the publication are available on the Community Food and Health Scotland website here along with a range of other relevant and useful information sources.

Pictured L-R: Lynne Marshall, Anne Gibson, David Ogilvie

 

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