Cooking, eating together and language sharing is fun for migrant women and children
by Caroline Sutton, Communications Officer
Every year the Food Partnership’s Good Food Grants scheme helps to support grassroots food projects across Brighton & Hove by giving small funding pots up to £800.
Projects funded are chosen based on different criteria including helping to alleviate food poverty, celebrating the cultural diversity in the city, helping the financial sustainability of food projects and supporting or enhancing the experience of volunteers.
This year we funded a cookery group for women refugees and asylum seekers at The Hive Café in Stoneham Park, a café run by Lara McLean.
The sessions were organised and run by Kate Holder who volunteers at the Migrant English Project.
Around eight to ten women with some of their children joined in the four sessions. They met in the evening after the café had closed and made a meal together and ate together sharing ideas, cooking tips and lots of new language learning, both English and non-English.
Kate said: “It was clear from the first session that the women were enjoying themselves and making some new friends or connections evident by the comment on the first week ‘why only four weeks? Why not every week?’
“Even those who had most recently arrived in the UK with almost no English were able to join in and seemed relaxed and ‘at home’ cooking.”
Kate admits there were issues from which she has learnt a lot. She said: “I forgot to budget for travel but Brighton and Hove Bus Company’s staff-led community action group very generously donated eight free monthly bus passes – though this wasn’t quite enough in the end as more women joined than anticipated once word of the group got out.
“This meant I had to eat into the food budget a little to pay for some extra bus fares. But the bus passes donated were an enormous help as the women gained confidence exploring new bus routes and parts of the city.” 
She adds: “I had four volunteers all of whom really liked the sessions. I think the evenings were beneficial to all the women attending but those who most recently arrived in the UK with little English probably benefited the most through exposure to new people, new places and learning and speaking English in a supportive environment. I think cooking or doing something practical is one of the best ways to learn a new language.
“The Hive was a great venue for women with children as it is located in a park. As more people (and children) attended than anticipated the food had to stretch further than planned.”
Kate says the course provided a host of other benefits from the participants including improved diet and physical and mental health of participants, improved skills and confidence, reduced isolation and loneliness and helped reduce food poverty.
She added: “I think the group has given those who have not been in the UK long some confidence with traveling around a new city – those who have been here longer helped those less confident find their way to and from the venue. The participants were encouraged to speak English because of the volunteers’ presence who helped the women follow the recipes (if we had one) and engaged with them in English throughout the sessions.”
She says she has plans to continue the cookery classes in the future. “I want to apply for more funding and run some more sessions,” she said.
“It would be great to create a recipe book – I took photos of the meals they cooked from memory and created printed recipes so we could all recreate it at home. It would be great if we could perhaps sell some of their food at a local food event – there are a lot of Ethiopian women who are very competent cooks.”
The Hive, Park, Stoneham, Stoneham Rd, Hove BN3 5HJ
