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Cookery classes used to support refugee integration

Marcus BootheBristol
News imageNarrated Frames A big group of people from multiple different nationalities are standing around a professional kitchen table, stirring, pouring and chopping food. They are all wearing purple aprons. Many people are smiling, while others look very focused. There are lots of different kitchen utensils on the table, knives, saucepans, frying pans, bowls and kitchen roll. Narrated Frames
Migrateful provides refugee cooks with paid work, training and opportunities to build confidence, improve English, and make new connections

A charity is supporting migrants and refugees from more than 45 different nationalities on their journey to integration in the UK by enabling them to teach cookery classes.

Migrateful's founder Jess Thompson said she set up the company after a discussion with a group of refugee women who were facing barriers to work in the UK.

"Every single person in the group said 'I would love to teach my community [how] to cook'," said the 24-year-old founder. "Although, they weren't necessarily professional chefs, they were very passionate home cooks."

Migrants in Bristol are trained by the charity for two years. They learn how to host a cookery class, preparing traditional cuisines for about 15 people.

"We work with them, not to teach them how to cook," said Hannah Charter, operations coordinator.

"It's more about designing their perfect cookery class."

Kele Alexander, who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago, is now a fully-trained cookery class chef with the charity.

In the Caribbean, she used to be a teacher and owned a catering business for 14 years.

Alexander said she faced a lot of transitional hardships in the UK but the support from Migrateful "was a dream".

"It shaped my destiny," she said.

News imageFede Rivas A group of men and women are standing in a kitchen wearing a purple apron with name tags. There are two men and two women working on a table with kitchen utensils. They are all chopping, peeling and preparing food. They are all smiling while keeping an eye on what they are doing. Two people, a man and woman, are holding big sharp knives. The other man and woman are peeling potatoes. Fede Rivas
Migrateful has recently found another permanent base at Windmill Hill City Farm where the school host's classes in cuisines from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Sudan and beyond

Migrateful said it recognises some people may have mixed hopes and fears towards integration and immigration, but the organisation wants to engage with these emotions and challenge misconceptions and prejudice.

Its method is based on psychologist Gordon Allport's "contact theory".

He claimed contact between refugees and host communities can successfully reduce prejudice towards refugees.

Since its inception, back in 2017 in London, the charity has run more than 5,000 cookery classes to about 62,000 different participants.

One member has been able to set up her own Syrian food catering company, which employs Syrian refugees.

During training the charity helps trainees to share their own personal stories to an audience.

Alexander tells stories that "shaped her" as a child while growing up in Trinidad and Tobago.

She said it is her way to "give back to the culture, with dignity".

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