Cook and Speak

Story:Carrie Hedderwick Photo:Zafarine Iqbal

Calling all women! These sessions, involving varied activities take place at St Cuthbert’s, Barnsley Road, Fir Vale on Wednesdays from 10.30am to 1.30pm.

I went to a cooking session. We ate well using the FoodCycle Scheme. FoodCycle is a national scheme which aims to build communities by combining volunteers, surplus food and spare kitchen spaces to create tasty, nutritious meals for people at risk of food poverty and social isolation.

FoodCycle overlaps with another scheme ‘TimeBuilders’ whose members get involved in a varied range of projects including art, yoga, photo-editing, beauty treatments, playing an instrument and basic IT. For every hour that volunteers and members work on these projects they earn a ‘time credit’ that they can spend on play.

The organisers in Sheffield of TimeBuilders work out of St Mary’s Church on Bramall Lane. They have negotiated deals with theatres, Sheffield United, coach companies, cinemas, and leisure centres. An hour of work is equal to an hour of play.

The Cook and Speak project originated in an English as Second Language (ESOL) course where it became apparent that many people find it unnatural to learn a language text book style. People learn language more easily by interacting and working alongside others.

I spoke to Nadia and Zafarine, very enthusiastic and dedicated workers on the project, who explained that their aim is to encourage and support local women who will then feel confident to run sessions themselves.

The themes for the next few weeks:

• 18th March – Bake Off & Skill Swapper

• 25th March – Café & Gup Shup

• 15th April- Meal for £1.00

• 22nd April – Café & Beyond Beauty Days

• 29th April – Bake Off & Skill Swapper

Go, take a friend, see what you think. Everybody can share their talents.

Contact – nadia@stmarys-church.co.uk or zafarine.iqbal@timebuilders.org.uk