African Challenge Scotland recaps a busy year
African Challenge Scotland (ACS) has been hard at work supporting BAME communities across North Glasgow and beyond.
Ronier Deumeni, founder of ACS, shares a snapshot of two projects they’ve been working on this year.
Cooking up confidence – ACS supporting culinary skills among young people
Our online cooking programme was developed to give skills, confidence and inspiration to young people to prepare and cook good, healthy food. The aim of the programme was to revive local community cooking skills and habits of eating healthier, more nutritious food through online cooking classes, with young people and their families involved.
Young people took the lead in establishing and running the programme, with the support of volunteers, staff and other interested community members. The programme was flexible to meet the needs of each individual and local community. We delivered 14 online cooking sessions which took place twice per month. This enabled those who participated the opportunity to learn different cooking techniques that will support and improve their overall mental health and wellbeing.
The overwhelming majority of respondents strongly welcomed the African Challenge Scotland Cooking programme. Responses included the following common themes:
- Desire to learn cooking skills among young people and parents
- Cooking club was needed
- Lack of healthy cooking skills and knowledge among young people and parents, which is a barrier to healthy eating
- Very limited provision of cooking skills in the local community
It was agreed that encouraging kids and families to eat healthily as they learned in the cooking sessions would affect obesity, health and wellbeing. The lack of cooking skills in our communities, the loss of good food culture, and the change to fast convenience and snack food were seen as causes of poor diet. The reasons given were lack of time, and advertising and promotion of convenience foods by the food industry and supermarkets.
A young person taking part said: “I thought the African Challenge Scotland Cooking classes were a great experience. It has really inspired me to become involved in cooking and helping my parents at home. It has helped me to experiment with different types of foods, and especially vegetables that I have never heard of! My dream is to become a professional Chef. I had a lot of fun at this programme.”
One of the ACS volunteers added “Cooking should be seen as a right for every young person in our diverse communities across Glasgow who wants it – and in my experience, most do.”
Hatem Johnson, African Challenge Scotland President said: “At African Challenge Scotland, we have a unique and strong culture of caring. Our cooking programme was a great idea and volunteers running the cooking programme have a good background knowledge of food and practical skills and were able to show young people the best and safest way to prepare and cook food.”
Improving Young People's Engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) in North Glasgow
Many minority ethnic and working-class young people in our youth club reported being interested in STEAM and aspired to working in STEAM jobs, yet rarely took part in designed and community informal STEAM learning offers. We worked with a range of companies, including Glasgow Science Centre, to ensure that all young people receive the best possible STEAM education.
Understanding and supporting parents and carers as key influencers of young people who are making decisions about their future is an integral part of our programme.
African Challenge Scotland and Glasgow Science Centre team work with our members, pupils and families right across Glasgow to give young people an insight into the world of work and to plug the STEAM skills gap.
Hatem Johnson, African Challenge Scotland President said: “We are delighted to see that this initiative will inspire, encourage, and support Black youth and individuals to achieve excellence, and contribute to society and the economy as leaders in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).”
More than 5 visits to the Glasgow Science Centre were organised as a result of the programme. Thanks to Sally White and the entire team at Glasgow Science Centre
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