Food for thought
Kitchen Cultures, an innovative Melbourne Citymission program, has been relaunched and is cooking up a recipe for harmony.
Funded by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, the program aims to reduce racism and discrimination in the inner-west, by bringing together young people from diverse backgrounds around the theme of world food and creative arts.
There will be five workshops over a twelve month period, with ten young people from different cultures attending each workshop. The young people will cook a meal together from one particular culture, while explaining and talking about their cultural differences. It’s an opportunity to learn how one culture perhaps uses bread instead of a fork while eating, or how others use their hands, or chopsticks.
The cooking of food will foster friendships, connections, understanding, and break down barriers between each group of young people.
A creative art activity is also part of the program – with the young people working on a mosaic to be displayed in a community setting, or the graphic design of a t-shirt with an anti-racism message. The art will spread the anti-racism message more widely in the community and will be displayed on Harmony Day, an international event taking place next March.
The launch took place at the Youth Enterprise Hub in Braybrook, with special guest Senator Kate Lundy, the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Community leaders and representatives from the Victoria Police also attended, to further spread the anti-racism sentiment
Young women from Croatia, Vietnam and Sudan, who previously participated in Kitchen Cultures, were there as well, so they could share their experiences with other young people interested in the new workshops.
Melbourne Citymission
Melbourne Citymission works with people experiencing disadvantage across Melbourne and Victoria. Every week we help thousands of people build a clear pathway away from economic exclusion and social isolation.
Our services support:
- people to find a pathway out of homelessness
- people with a disability to get the resources and support they need to live the life they want
- people to break the cycle of poverty and abuse
- people to find jobs, or enter into education and training.
