A cooking competition has been the final event of this third edition of Labgov. In this occasion students, professors and staff members had the occasion to work together, listen to the inspiring words of our judge and guest Annibale D’ Elia. The meeting was followed by the final lesson in the garden with our partners from Zappata Romana. Adding to this an amazing sunny day, we can easily say that there couldn’t have been a better conclusion to the Labgov activities of this year.
On the 18th of April the last event on the Labgov calendar has taken place, and even if several future projects are waiting for the group, we have reached the end of the third edition of the Laboratory, which focused on “environment agriculture and food”, with the aim of discovering a possible path of collaborative governance of our territory as a commons.
The program for the day was rich and diversified. It started with the last cooking class, in which the chefs taught to the participants how to make a classical but always loved dessert–tiramisù- and, before the official competition began, a special coffee break took place, in which our guest Annibale D’Elia gave us numerous advices.
D’Elia is one of the co-founders of Bollenti Spiriti, the youth policies program created by the region Puglia, composed by a number of actions aiming at allowing young citizens’ participation in all the aspects of the community life. Starting from his experience with this project, D’Elia told us about the importance of getting personally involved, trying to create something new from what we already have, without waiting for the perfect conditions to develop. He believes that we should take reality as it is and not as we think it should be, and in order to do so we need to make a step towards a different direction and to look at the world around us from a new perspective. We live in a time in which what we learn in school is not enough anymore, and in which new competences are required. To acquire these competences we need an informal education in which people get together, share experiences and learn trough practice.
This stimulating speech was followed by the cooking competition, in which the participants, divided into two teams, faced each other and attempted to reproduce all the dishes they prepared during the previous meetings. Before the judges returned their final verdict all the participants enjoyed the lunch offered by CIR-FOOD Luiss.
But this wasn’t the end. During this conclusive Labgov meeting a last common work shift in the community garden could not be missing! The group moved to the garden and met with our partners from Zappata Romana, who have been following the project since the beginning of the year and who have shared with us their knowledge on many occasions. The last activity of the day consisted in the creation of “gardens in a box” in which each student could plant his favorite seeds, giving life to a small personalized garden, ready to be taken home and to be taken care of as the Laboratory taught us to do.