Cooking show host warming hearts
● Liya Yisaka teams up with Vodacom to hand out hot meals in Kabega Park
A Bay cooking show host shared the fruit of her labour by feeding dozens of jobseekers in Kabega Park yesterday morning.
Liya Yisaka, 30, braved the rain to hand out meals prepared for Liya’s Kitchen, her Facebook page which aims at empowering unemployed people with cookery skills.
The Bridgemead project coordinator is a self-taught cook and focuses on simple, easy-tomake food in her free weekly cooking show.
Zimbabwean builder Mike Gwezuva was one of the first in the queue of about 30 jobseekers on the cold and wet morning.
He welcomed the chance of a home-cooked meal of chicken, rice, spinach and carrots.
“When you can’t get a job it’s very difficult, sometimes I stand the whole day and I don’t get anything,” Gwezuva said.
“If I can get this food it is better.”
Yisaka had partnered with Vodacom and said she was grateful to the company for giving her the opportunity to share the food.
“I’ve always been that person who enjoys working out in the field and giving back to the community.
“Hopefully I am motivating the youth when it comes to starting your own thing and being passionate about doing what you love.”
The entrepreneur started her Facebook page during the hard lockdown when restaurants were closed.
“I go live every Thursday at 7pm on my page, Liya’s Kitchen, and this year I partnered with Vodacom for its Cook4Money series, to show simple basic meals that people can cook.
“The main idea behind this is to address the unemployment issue in our province and try get the youth to use their skills so that they can start up their businesses and make money for themselves.
“I just prepare simple meals, and not something that’s too fancy,” Yisaka said.
“I am not a professional chef, but I have a passion for cooking and the kitchen is my playground.”
She identified a street next to MetLife Plaza in Kabega Park where many jobseekers gathered each day in the hope of putting food on their own tables at home.
Vodacom Bay county manager Mninawa Peter said the donation of the food to the men was a follow-up to Mandela Day last month
“We thought it important to identify a place where we can give people the food that she is cooking,” Peter said of the choice in drop-off point.
“We have seen lots of people in this area looking for jobs — they spend the whole day here and they are not eating, so this might be the only meal they are going to have for the day.”
Peter said Cook4Money was one of several entrepreneurial ventures in Gqeberha, along with a Bake4Money, Sewing4 Money and SkinCare4Money.
The company also ran a Farming4Money initiative in the Kei region of the Eastern Cape.
“It’s a service we created to try to get the youth to start a business without a huge cash outlay,” Peter said.
The idea is to build skills in unemployed people so they can work for themselves.
He said the winners of each of Yisaka’s weekly online sessions received pots and groceries to start their own catering venture.
Yisaka said she was a “firm believer in doing what you love, and hopefully we can make money for you”.
“This was a way of giving back, to motivate them to keep at it because we are still in the pandemic and people are losing their jobs.
“These are skilled workers, painters and builders, but they are not employed even though they have skills that could be used on a daily basis,” she said.
“If you do have a skill, make sure to use it, so that it can work for you to earn a livelihood.”
‘Hopefully I am motivating the youth when it comes to starting your own thing and being passionate about doing what you love’