Recipe for success
Slow Cooked Dreams creator takes home provincial award
SYDNEY — A Mi’kmaq woman has been named a provincial champion for helping to improve health through home-cooked meals.
Nadine Bernard grew up in We’koma’q but now lives in Sydney.
About eight years ago, she started the journey toward creating a food-centred business to empower people to take charge of their health.
Bernard said the idea sprang from her attendance at the Indigenous women in community leadership course offered by the Coady International Institute at St. FX University in Antigonish.
As part of her studies, Bernard dreamed up Slowed Cooked Dreams to help teach people how to make nutritious meals on a budget.
Bernard started delivering workshops five years ago to teach meal planning and preparation, combined with a mix of motivational speaking and life coaching.
For the last year and a half, the former family support worker has delivered the program on a fulltime basis.
She estimates that throughout the course of the project, she’s delivered workshops to 600 people, including 73 people who are now trained as program facilitators.
Bernard was recently chosen as winner of the 2018 champion award from the Public Health Association of Nova Scotia.
“I was crying,” said Bernard. “I had just finished a workshop, and I was in my car and I got a ‘ding’ on my phone that I had a new email … to be recognized for an Indigenous-centred philosophy, to be recognized by Public Health of Nova Scotia, was a big thing for me.”
Bernard said she believes there are no barriers to who could benefit from the program.
“It’s for anyone — anyone who wants to learn, anybody who wants to engage in a social environment to talk about food literacy, budgeting and to support one another,” she said.
“People have left impact statements of how it’s changed their lives, or I’ll get messages in my inbox saying I couldn’t have gotten this job without taking your course,” said Bernard.
Bernard has partnered on projects with Public Health of Nova Scotia and sits on its Eastern division committee.
Nominated by local public health employees, Bernard was chosen for the championship award for having demonstrated leadership, commitment and innovation in improving the health of Nova Scotians.