The recipe for rebuilding lives
As the refugee crisis continues we get a flavour of an innovative project giving migrants friendship, skills and hope by teaching classes in their native cuisine
There are certain foods that always taste like home. Whether it’s the shepherd’s pie your mother made or the casserole you used to cook when friends came round, food instantly brings back memories.
When you’re living miles away from home as a refugee, perhaps separated from your loved ones, cooking the food of your native country can be a great comfort in challenging times. Cooking might also be the only skill you feel you can share if, like 50 per cent of the 125,000 refugees in the UK, you cannot find employment because of the language barrier and foreign qualifications not being recognised here.
This is why last June Jess Thompson (26) set up Migrateful – a social enterprise where asylum seekers, refugees and migrants struggling to access employment in the UK teach their traditional cuisines to other people. “At the time I’d been volunteering for a timebank charity with refugees where the idea was that time is your currency so I’d give an hour of teaching in return for an hour being taught something. “When I spoke with refugee women, they said what they could give in return was to teach their cuisine,” says Jess. “These were women who were highly qualified in the countries they came from, but were unemployed here and feeling useless and frustrated. Cooking, however, was an inherent skill they had from childhood and I thought if we could give them the ability to be able to teach that cuisine, people would pay to learn.”
The idea of Migrateful is that migrants join a chef training programme where they learn how to lead a cookery class, as well as specific skills in public speaking, confidencebuilding and organisation, and the chance to gain a cooking qualification. They then lead three practice sessions before teaching a class of foodie customers at a venue in London. Migrants who are legally allowed to work in the UK also receive payment for giving this class. Today, Migrateful runs around four different classes a week, which people can join as an individual or as a group to learn cuisines ranging from Syrian to Nigerian, Pakistani and Albanian.
Jess says: “The first benefit of these classes for the migrants is that they are able to improve their English by having the chance to practise and interact with English customers. This is especially important as the government has recently cut
‘When I spoke with refugee women, they said what they could give in return was to teach their cuisine’
funding for teaching English to migrants by half. “Although asylum seekers who cannot legally work can’t be paid for the classes, they do offer them a chance to feel useful. For example, we have a Nigerian chef who was trafficked into the UK when she was 16. She’s now 34 and still waiting for her asylum claim. However, she has said that doing this has been really empowering, giving her a sense of purpose and a way of giving back to society rather than constantly having to ask for help. She says it really changed her life, which is very moving.” As for the customers, they get a lot out of it too. Jess says: “Everyone hears so much in the news about the refugee crisis but there aren’t many opportunities to actually meet and speak to refugees and to hear their individual stories.”
Jess says that while some customers come simply because they love food and learning new cuisines, they are also helping the chef – even if that’s not their main intention.
“A lot of customers say it’s a good way to meet people as we make it a very social event where everyone sits down to tuck into the food together at the end. And that’s lovely for the chefs too, as some of them are very isolated and lonely.
“So much of their lives are difficult, but they say that this feels a very positive place with a real sense of community.”