You Are What You Eat

A way to promote cohesion can involve organising activity by bringing people of different backgrounds together through, for example, cooking food. The aim of this section is to introduce culinary culture as a tool for social inclusion of disadvantaged groups in society.

The anticipated outcome is to encourage migrants and locals of all ages and backgrounds to learn new things and techniques and to benefit in multiple ways by mingling with each other and developing new skills. Providing opportunities for migrants and refugees to meet with members of the local community contributes and encourages mutual understanding. This can include formal and informal meetings such as for example cultural, sporting or social events.

Activity 4: Food Workshop Proposal Preparation

This activity is adapted from a community project implemented by the Democratic Education Centre in the Czech Republic and consists of preparing a plan for organising a culinary workshop by a migrant. The workshop is run by a migrant with the help of a facilitator. The idea stresses the migrant’s agency and active involvement, as he/she is not only participating in the activity but independently planning (and possibly future leading) it with the assistance of the facilitator. The motivation is to prepare an organisational plan of the workshop for the general public, and thus support creating an open space for an intercultural dialogue between migrants and locals.

1. The facilitator gets together with the participant who is preparing a program of a culinary workshop to discuss his/her idea of the event´s course and content. The key idea is that the participant takes part in an independent decision-making process with possible assistance. The activity can take place as a group session, where the participant creates their own proposals, supervised by a facilitator. It can also take form of a one-to-one session where the facilitator meets with one participant.
2. Event Management – the participant considers what course of action and steps his/her workshop will follow and how much time it will take up, creates a to-do list and a timeline.
3. Recipes preparation – writing down a list of meals the participant would like to introduce and cook together with the visitors.
4. Organisation – preparing a scenario of the event, how is he/she going to introduce the event to the participant, what is he/she going to explain and discuss about his/her story, country of origin, recipes chosen.
5. The overall goal and impact of this activity is: planning a production of one’s own event is to support migrants in taking action, practising local language for the purpose of public speaking, gaining and practising new skills in event management and cooperation. The expected outcomes of the activity are: event plan and timeline, list of dishes and recipes, draft of opening oral introduction.