Today, with a very special event, Save the Children and the Basque Culinary Center celebrate the end of the educational innovation programme Recipes for Coexistence, funded by the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation. More than 470 students from 12 schools from the three territories of the Basque Autonomous Community have participated in this first year for the event.

“The number of people crossing borders in the world today keeps on increasing. Among these, the number of children has increased dramatically. Millions of girls and boys move from one place to another, inside and outside their borders, voluntarily or driven by war, persecution, poverty or natural disasters. Knowing the reasons that cause the migrations and being aware of our responsibility as a host territory will allow us to move towards becoming a welcoming society that is respectful of diversity,” explains Sara Polo, project
coordinator from Save the Children.

For his part, Joxe Mari Aizega, director general of the Basque Culinary Center affirms: “Gastronomy is based on the fusion of ingredients, cultures and ways of doing things. On this occasion, it has become a means to raise awareness and educate children about how the mixture of different elements can produce something delicious.”

In this the inaugural event, Save the Children has provided training for more than 60 teachers and management teams from schools on rights of migrant and refugee children, causes that lead to displacement, what the routes travelled by and the experiences of these children are like, responsibilities and challenges of host societies, what coexistence is and why it is so important, and which are the basic social values that sustain it.