Turning shared meals into a pathway for belonging
Partnering with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation to bring multicultural food stories into Harmony Week programming.
The Context
In the lead-up to Harmony Week 2026, Culture Spring, an initiative powered by CMY, partnered with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation to bring multicultural young people together to share their experiences with food at school and to explore how culture and belonging can be embedded in school food systems.
The Kitchen Garden Program provides schools with professional development, resources and support to establish their own garden programs, giving students hands-on skills in the kitchen and garden at both primary and secondary school levels.
The challenge
School food programs rarely reflect the range of cultural backgrounds sitting in the room. Without a deliberate process, the food stories, recipes and traditions multicultural students bring with them stay invisible in a program built around a single default culture.
Our approach
Culture Spring brought together multicultural young people from a range of backgrounds to share their stories, recipes and ideas, demonstrating how culturally inclusive food environments can strengthen identity, belonging, curiosity and engagement at school.
The impact
When young people see their cultures, ingredients and food traditions reflected at school, food becomes a pathway to belonging, curiosity and participation.
Harmony Week was a perfect time to share the power of food as a connector to community, culture and diversity among Australia’s young people.
The recipes created in this workshop are added the 500 recipes already available online through the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation’s Shared Table resources.
“When I was in primary school, I took part in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program at my school. It was a great formative experience for me particularly in how it has shaped my experience around food growing up. I would love to contribute my thoughts to thefoundation and express my appreciation for their work as someone who has experienced it first hand and greatly benefitted from it.”
