Rebuilding The Village-One Shared Meal At A Time

Food is more than fuel, it’s how we heal, connect and remember who we are.

We Lost The Village

There’s a popular African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child” but somewhere along the line, the village disappeared. We now live in gated homes, cook behind closed doors and eat behind phone screens. Many households have exchanged family meals for drive-through, neighbors don’t share food like they used to. The kitchen, once a sacred site of bonding, learning and laughter, has become either a battleground or a forgotten corner of the home.

And the result? A rise in diet-related illnesses, loneliness, disconnection from traditional food wisdom and a generational gap in basic cooking and nourishment skills. It’s time to change that narrative. It’s time to rebuild the village with nutrition as the foundation.

 The Role Of Food In Traditional African Villages

Before food became a trending topic, it was simply life in many African cultures, Grandmothers were the first nutrition educators, teaching by example. Communal cooking was a daily ritual, especially during festivals or family events. Children learned to wash vegetables, stir pots and grind spices before they even learned to read. Eating was never just about calories, it was about presence. We gathered around pots, shared from one bowl, prayed before eating and waited for everyone to be served. That system didn’t just nourish bodies; it built character, respect and unity.

 What We Lost And Why It Matters

With urbanization, fast-paced living and the influence of Western culture, we lost key pillars of communal eating. Now:

·         Families often eat separately or while distracted by screens.

·         Meals are outsourced to fast food.

·         Traditional cooking skills are fading.

·         Children see food as transactional, not essential need.

This shift has consequences:

·         Rising non-communicable diseases: hypertension, diabetes, obesity, even in young children.

·         Emotional eating patterns rooted in loneliness and stress.

·         Intergenerational food trauma, where parents unknowingly pass on disordered eating.

·         Cultural disconnection, where local foods are abandoned for imported snacks.

Nutrition was never supposed to divide us but today, it often does through class, misinformation, body ideals or guilt-ridden eating patterns.

The Village Is The Future Of Public Health

Rebuilding the village is not nostalgia, it is strategy. Studies from the WHO and global public health bodies now emphasize community-based nutrition interventions as the most sustainable because:

·         Peer-to-peer nutrition learning is more relatable.

·         Community kitchens encourage cost-sharing and skill-sharing.

·         Social eating reduces binge-restrict cycles and loneliness.

·         Culturally grounded food education respects people’s heritage.

Imagine the difference if:

·         Mothers learned complementary feeding not just from pamphlets but from weekly kitchen circles.

·         Churches and mosques taught faith-based nutrition alongside prayer.

·         School children planted, cooked and ate local foods they grew with their classmates.

·         Young professionals learned to meal prep from aunties and elders.

Nutrition can be the glue that rebinds broken homes and fragmented communities.

How To Rebuild (Practical Solutions)

Here’s how we begin:

1.      Create communal cooking experiences

·         Monthly “Cook & Connect” events in local communities.

·         Partner with schools, churches, NGOs or even influencers.

·         Focus on local ingredients, traditional meals and shared laughter.

 

2.       Normalize shared meals again

·         Encourage family-style eating at home even if it’s once a week.

·         Include children in meal prep to build skills and confidence.

·         Reintroduce “eat together” time in after-school programs and churches.

 

3.       Train the new village leaders

·         Equip parents (especially mothers), teachers, house-helps, youth leaders and even nannies with practical nutrition education.

·         Use culturally relevant illustrations and foods they already know.

·         Make them feel seen, not shamed.

4.      Make nutrition inclusive

·         De-shame feeding practices. Not every family can afford organic or imported.

·         Teach people how to maximize what they have, not what they don’t.

·         Talk about food with kindness, not guilt.

·         Integrate food heritage into nutrition curriculum and urban wellness events.

 From Shame To Solidarity  

Nutrition has too often been used as a weapon: “Why are you feeding your child that?” “Don’t you know that’s bad for you?” “You’re still eating pounded yam at night?”…..It’s time to shift that tone. Let’s use food to build empathy;  to sit beside the woman who’s struggling to feed her kids before lecturing her, to model not impose, because when nutrition becomes a shared experience instead of a private struggle, healing begins.

A New Kind Of Village Starts With You

Rebuilding the village doesn’t mean returning to the past, it means reclaiming what worked. It means reviving the shared table, passing on food wisdom like an heirloom. We need to relearn what it means to eat well, we need to replace confusion with clarity through nutrition education that is kind and inclusive because misinformation and intergenerational eating patterns have scattered families.

The village can rise again-through truth, through shared meals, through practical, compassionate nutrition that meets people where they are. When we teach people how to nourish not just eat, when we give them back their confidence, their food heritage and their freedom from shame; that’s when healing begins.  Let’s rebuild the village—one meal at a time.