On 10 February 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), met with Youth Champions for Nutrition and staff from Helen Keller International (HKI) and from the Council for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD) to discuss the plans for a Youth Nutrition Camp to be held in Kep province on 7-9 April 2020. The Youth Nutrition Camp is a platform to raise awareness and understanding among young Cambodians, especially those who are future leaders and agents of change, of how food systems impact their lives and the social and economic development of the country.  

The HKI Youth Nutrition Champions, inspired and led by Ms Chhun Bormey of HKI, will play a key role in the activity as facilitators for youth engagement and training in this upcoming event.  After discussion of the advertisement, recruitment and selection processes, the Youth Champions worked with the HKI communications and visibility team to produce a series of short promotional videos for use in the social media. In conjunction with the FAO staff, the HKI team will run a selection process to find 50 students from different backgrounds who are keen to learn about food systems and healthy diets.  Ms Camille Rameau, a French Volunteer working with FAO, plays a key role in linking young staff from different organizations in planning and then running the training of facilitators and the Youth Nutrition Camp 7-9 April.  More details of the activity and application information is available at https://www.facebook.com/events/183033023105841/

This event is supported by CARD, Helen Keller International, the EU-FAO FIRST Programme, UNICEF and WFP to accelerate progress towards the achievement of Cambodia SDG 2: under the joint priorities for Food Systems Improvement and Healthy Diets of the National Strategy for Food Security and Nutrition 2019-2023; and to contribute to the Youth and Nutrition Accelerators for the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for Cambodia 2019-2023. The initiative builds on the successful sequence of Youth Forums for Nutrition in Cambodia during 2019 led by CARD, HKI and the WHO.