David Cousins, Youth & Community Development Manager writes
In amongst the array of wonderful things happening in Redcliffe it’s sometimes hard to pick out one highlight. However, our community cook-up is providing a huge amount of satisfaction now – not least for Andy (our Community Development Worker)’s stomach!
It combines all the best of what we do through our Youth and Community work. We have nearly 350 of our neighbours living in the Mercure Hotel that are desperate to cook. At St Mary Redcliffe, we have an underused commercial kitchen in the Undercroft. By simply connecting the two it has created something truly inspirational.
We work with the hotel management to form teams from the same region of the world who then cook a meal for up to 40-50 from the hotel to enjoy. So far, we have had Afghan, Indian/Pakistani, Kurdish, Caribbean, Georgian/Ukrainian, Southern African, Brazilian teams cooking dishes that astound us with their restaurant quality taste and presentation.
It is not just about the food though. As the teams come together from different parts of the world you can feel the strength provided by the connection to their culture and the pride in sharing something that they have created. We provide simple activities for parents to do with their children. Families gather around the table and eat, play, and talk together. A feeling of home.
As a simple analogy it beautifully represents what we want to do as a community team at St Mary Redcliffe. When we see people who are hungry the most obvious and natural thing is to give them a meal. However, when we give the ingredients to cook, we are giving them the power to feed themselves.
