Celostno izobraževanje o prehrani (CIOP)

Celostno izobraževanje o prehrani Tanja Bordon s.p. (CIOP) is active since 2015, focused on food, healthy lifestyle, and sustainability. It cooperates with 4 different Slovenian colleges (programs: Catering and Tourism, Wellness), with a faculty for sustainable tourism, with some schools (secondary and primary) and kindergartens as well. Here it performs webinars and online courses about sustainable food for pedagogues, kitchen staff, and workshops for pupils. It helps organizations to improve their nutrition, and their communication between employees, parents, and the local community. Educational programs are in the catalog of professional education (KATIS) for pedagogues, issued by the Ministry of Education.

CIOP cooperated with a Park Škocjan Caves (under UNESCO heritage protection) as one of the educators for their network of schools. Later CIOP started a network of water schools in Slovenija. CIOP is a partner in Erasmus + programs about sustainable food and water. Learners of CIOP are: pedagogues at kindergartens and in primary schools, cooks, employees in catering and tourism. 

CIOP performs educational programs about food and sustainability for pedagogues in schools, kindergartens, with emphasis on better cooperation with cooks. CIOP is raising awareness about the importance of pedagogues, who are usually overlooked, even though they eat with children and are their role models. Through pedagogues we can reach children and influence their food choices and behaviouor around food and plastic waste.  In a one-year educational mentoring program (Sustainable Food in Kindergartens and Schools) pedagogues improve their eating culture with children, step by step. They understand the basics and perform the program in the future. We encourage pedagogues to use innovative methods to create a friendly eating environment without food waste: stories, coloring, singing,eco-gardening, farm visits, tastings for children. These help to raise positive feelings about food, which means fewer
leftovers. It is estimated that children who have school/kindergarten gardens or who visit farms have a better acceptance of food and less neophobia, that’s why we encourage this aspect.