As part of Local Development Week, with the ILDN, we thought we’d share our experience of our Community Kitchen.
In today’s blog, our New Communities Support Officer, Abdisalam Hassan, talks about what it’s been like working on our Community Kitchen with people living in the International Protection system.
“The Community Kitchen started in February this year as an initiative that offers a space for people living in Accommodation Centres to cook meals of their choice. It’s a great opportunity for participants to cook their own traditional dishes once a week and to share food with their peers in the Centres they reside in. To date 60 families have partaken in the Community Kitchen on a rotational basis. It’s very much a needed space and as a result demand increases each week.”
“For the Community Kitchen, I played a role in reaching out to people who live in accommodation centres. One aspect of the Community Kitchen that I love to see is that people come together to share the meal and also share the different cultures that they have.”
“I think it’s underestimated how important it is to have your own space to cook. It helps them to reconnect with their own home when they fill their own dishes. It’s very important to them. It’s amazing to see people cooking and helping and also sharing the food with each other. They are from different accommodation centres but at the Community Kitchen, they feel like they are part of one community.”
“We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants with a mix of appreciation of the opportunity and requests of continuation and quicker turnaround in their rotation of attendance. We look forward to welcoming more families in the future.”
