"Skills kitchen" will help young people learn to cook

Published by PGarcia for Independent People in Housing and also in Communities, Education, Environment

Young homeless people supported by 1625 Independent People will benefit from the brand new kitchen at their centre in Old Market.

Young people helped put together a funding presentation to raise part of the money needed to replace the old domestic style kitchen with a catering standard kitchen.

They joined staff to present their case to The Funding Network South West at a Dragon's Den style funding event, run by Quartet Community Foundation at the Mansion House last year. The local businesses, philanthropists and private funders were obviously impressed and were very generous.

Barclays Bank, who have supported the charity to improve the financial skills of young people, also donated to the project.

Local food gurus Barny Haughton (The Cookery School) and Dom Wood (The Urban Wood) both backed the project by appearing in a short video which was shown as part of the presentation.

The building works were completed just before Christmas. To start the kitchen off in a celebratory way, a group of young people will get a free "Puddings Masterclass" from local pastry chef June Allaart.

The Skills Kitchen will give young people free training in

• cooking, nutrition and budgeting skills
• Food Hygiene Certificates
• catering and community events experience
• producing items for sale and learning how a small business works

Quotes from young people who were involved in the application:

Most young people eat fast food, fast. Food is just fuel and usually comes ready made. The group we work with have no money, some are quite shy, not very sociable and quite hard to reach.  But everyone likes free home cooked food.  So we can use food as draw to get young people to come in and engage with us.

I have cooked for a few events now, it improved my confidence  and made me feel good. And I've got a Food Hygiene Certificate.

If we have a proper kitchen we could use it and cooking to help people learn about budgeting and healthy eating.

David Morgan, Independent People Board member and project lead for the Skills Kitchen said

"Cooking and eating meals with other people is great for socialising and forming bonds with others. The cooking skills learnt by young people in the new kitchen will make it possible for them to prepare healthy food economically throughout their lives"