Food safety and food justice are two important issues we have today, and two that need to be resolved immediately. How can you get involved?
Firstly, join an organization already dedicated to the cause. One potential organization could be the FoodCorps. In their youth programs, you work with your school to invite a member from the organization to talk to your school about food safety, including growing, cooking, and eating healthy food. You can also work with the organization to provide your school with healthier lunches, which would be ideal for students living in a family with low income, who can't afford healthy vegetables and time to cook them.
Another organization you can work with is The Food Project. They focus on hands-on work and building leadership skills. There are 3 crews: Seed Crew (during summer), Dirt Crew (during school year), and Root Crew (all year). In the crew, you work with staff on growing vegetables and distributing them, which is great for learning skills in leadership, teamwork, civic participation, and workplace areas. You also get paid by the hour!
If you're into engineering and coding more than physical labor, check out Teens for Justice. This organization is specifically for teens, and the curriculum for their programs will be more accessible than the other organizations. If you join them, you will get to build your own hydroponic system, mastering skills including hydroponic systems tech, urban agriculture engineering, plant biology and chemistry, the physics of indoor growing, data collection and tracking, and indoor agriculture as a food scarcity solution.
Another part of the Teens for Justice program is learning more about food itself through the plants you are growing and a curriculum, which includes cooking with food you have grown, eating with the food produced from the farm, learning the health benefits of plants, healthy and affordable shopping skills, and healthy recipe preparation. Lastly, you can learn more about food distribution and advocacy, distributing to local schools and communities, while also advocating for food justice issues.