Last Tuesday, 14 grassroots volunteers headed to Parliament with our southern advocate- Walter Nyika- to speak with their MPS about global undernutrition ahead of the ‘Nutrition for Growth’ event on June 8th. This guest blog post about the day comes from Rob Green, the new group leader of our new RESULTS group in Cardiff.
It was my first time meeting the RESULTS team and my first time attending one of their Advocacy Days at Parliament. Â The day began with a briefing from Walter Nyika, our honoured guest from Zimbabwe, who spoke to us about his work on permaculture and nutrition in Malawi. Â After an inspiring talk, we headed to Parliament to meet with our MPS. My local MP of Cardiff South and Penarth is Stephen Doughty, a leader politician and former head of Oxfam Cyrmu.
After requesting to meet with Stephen at Parliaments central lobby, I was pleased to find out that he was available to meet with me. The meeting couldn’t have gone any better! Stephen was extremely interested in the work RESULTS are doing and was keen to support their future campaigns. Within a minute he agreed to write the Rt. Hon Justine Greening, calling on her to commit at least 149 million per year, over multiple years, at the ‘Nutrition for Growth’ event to funding financially sound, national nutrition plans and by the end he wanted to give us a shout out in The Chamber. He also kindly agreed to speak at any future RESULTS events and was keen to help build the RESULTS group in Cardiff.
Other grassroots had similarly successful meetings. Reg Davis, leader of the Poole group, met with Robert Simms MP and Tom Maguire, leader of the central London group, met with Caroline Lucas MP, the former leader of the Green Party. Both MPs were extremely interested in the issue of global undernutrition and were keen to bring it to the attention of Justine Greening.
All in all, the advocacy day was an absolutely fantastic start to my time at RESULTS and I am now motivated to do more with the great team.