Bridging the Gap: with fruit and veg vouchers

The use of vouchers, or conditional cash transfers, has been modelled in the UK through the government food subsidy scheme, Healthy Start (Best Start in Scotland). The Alexandra Rose Charity has further modelled this approach with its Rose Vouchers which can be reclaimed at street markets for purchasing fruit and veg. 

In the USA similar schemes have been running for decades, demonstrating how we can simultaneously build community wealth and community health. In this webinar we will hear from examples of successful conditional cash transfer programmes and pilots in the UK, USA and Belgium. We will look at how these can be applied to enable access to organic fruit and veg for improved health and climate outcomes.

There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions of your own, so please register today to join the discussion.

Chair

• Jonathan Pauling, Alexandra Rose Charity, Chief Executive

Speakers

• Michelle Green, Alexandra Rose Charity, Impact and Evaluation Manager
• Dr Chi-Chi Ekhator, Ascension Trust, GP and Vice Chair
• Jonathan Peuch, FIAN Belgium
• Brent Ling, Director of External Affairs at Wholesome Wave

 

Speaker bios

Jonathan Pauling

Jonathan is the Chief Executive at Alexandra Rose Charity. 10 years ago he helped its new mission - to improve access to healthy and affordable food for all. Jonathan built the Rose Vouchers for Fruit & Veg Project to pioneer the use of financial incentives to help families on low incomes avoid food insecurity and food related ill-health. From small pilots in London supporting 45 families, this work has now spread around the UK supporting 3,500 families every week. In 2022 the Charity launched Fruit & Veg on Prescription working in partnership with GP’s, social prescribers, and community health organisations to test how fruit & veg vouchers could support people to manage long term health conditions. 

Jonathan has spent the past 25 years working at the nexus of food, health, equity, and sustainability. He grew up in New Zealand and studied at the University of Canterbury before emigrating to the UK in 2002. Before joining Alexandra Rose Charity he worked on improving food access in East London and as a Senior Policy Advisor to the London Food Board. 

Michelle Green

Michelle is a research and social impact professional. She has a decade of experience working on social impact projects that tackle public health and social inequalities, including mental health stigma, increasing awareness of beauty demands as a public health issue, and access to the internet as a human right. Since gaining a PhD in 2019, she has fostered a special interest in creative methods of intervening in public health and wellbeing, particularly through food, cooking, and community. With that in mind she joined the Alexandra Rose Charity 3 years ago as the Impact and Evaluation Manager and has since led the evidencing and evaluation of their fruit and veg vouchers projects. 

Dr Chi-Chi Ekhator

Dr Chi-Chi Ekhator is a GP in London and a GP Appraiser for NHS England. She is Vice Chair of Ascension Trust, an organisation known for initiatives that seek to help the vulnerable in society. 

Dr Chi-Chi leads the AT Beacon Project, a health initiative of Ascension Trust working on the ground in the heart of neighbourhoods with key partners and stakeholders to address health inequalities. The AT Beacon Project uses local spaces or hubs such as a barbershop, a social supermarket, churches, and community centres to build trust and support people who are less likely to engage with health services to lead healthier, flourishing lives. 

In October 2022, in response to the Cost of Living Crisis, the AT Beacon Project, in partnership with Lambeth Public Health and the Alexandra Rose charity, launched one of the UK’s first Fruit & Veg on Prescription programme. The Lambeth Fruit & Veg on Prescription programme provides access to fresh fruits and vegetables from local market traders for those with long-term health conditions, taking a holistic approach towards improving their health. The interim and final results have consistently demonstrated positive health and wellbeing outcomes.

Jonathan Peuch

Jonathan Peuch is advocacy officer for the NGO FIAN Belgium which promotes the right to food at national and international scale. His work concerns the question related to the access to food, in regards to health, consumption, prices, etc. He holds a PhD in law from the university of UCLeuven about the insufficient protection of consumer from the EU law. Its main dossier is to think and act for the proposal of a Social Security for food in Belgium, which consists in an allocation to every resident in the country (between 50 and 150e / month) to provide food from sustainable, transitioning food chains, and that respect health and social rights. We've realized the right to health with the social security, why not doing the same for food?

Brent Ling

Brent Ling serves as Director of External Affairs at Wholesome Wave. Mr Ling is an advocate for health in all policy and a strong supporter of open and accessible government structures — this belief is rooted in over a decade of experience as a social-benefit small business owner, manager, investor and front-line worker. A longtime resident of the District of Columbia, Brent is a graduate of the schools of public health at Johns Hopkins and Indiana University. He has been published in leading academic journals on topics of health and policymaker engagement.