ALG Meeting – Tuesday 12th May

We've decided on a project! We think....

We're partnering with the Coolibah, a drop-in centre for older, homeless people in the Carlton area and the Ecumenical Migration Centre to develop a program through which we would ideally employ recently arrived refugees or migrants to teach cooking classes in their traditional cuisines at Coolibah. We would run regular International Cuisine Nights at Coolibah with all the members sharing a meal and sharing stories. We're meeting with the Coolibah members tomorrow to put forward our proposal and get their input. We're aiming to complete our proposal and Knowledge Transfer grant application by the end of the week.



The following are the details of the project as drawn up during our meeting today.

Aims:

• Developing a sense of community for marginalised people.
• Increasing self respect, dignity and a sense of achievement by creating a meal.
• Facilitating dialogue in order to gain an understanding of different. communities i.e. between homeless people and refugees and university students.
• Providing employment for refugees.
• Possibly have a permanent record of the sessions e.g. blog/book etc.
• Possibly provide a certificate upon completion of the program for each member.

How we’ll achieve those aims:

• Have a few people each session give a talk about their lives. Perhaps powerpoint presentation with a photo and basic info. We could meet up with the speakers and prepare the presentation on his computer.
• Getting refugees with EMC to teach their local cuisines.
• Sharing a meal and stories/socialising.
• Getting other uni students/SALPers involved in volunteering.
• Initially keep a blog of our involvement.

Timeline:

• Proposal and Kknowledge Transfer Grant due 15th May.
• Finish application for funding by 22nd May.
• Finish planning stage by the end of the winter holidays.
• Put plan into action a couple of weeks into 2nd semester.

Plan for each session:

• Shopping with cook (1 hr).
• Preparing presentation with presenter (1 hr).
• Introduction to the cooking instructor, what meal we’re cooking, where it’s coming from etc (15 mins).
• Cooking and preparation (45 mins).
• Share stories while meal is cooking (30 mins).
• Eating time (45 mins).
• Clean up and possibly briefing the cook/presenter for the following week (45 mins).

Potential sources of income:

• Willow (Ralph’s family business): providing bakeware.
• Cooking company sponsorship (advertised on blog, good pr for companies).
• Ad revenue from blog.
• KT Grant.
• Other grants.
• Fundraising.
• Second bite/Fareshare/supermarkets donating food and ingredients.

Potential problems:

• What if we don’t get a grant?
• Availability of ingredients.
• What if no one is willing to share their stories?
• What if refugees don’t want to do it?
• What if people are not available over the holidays to do the bulk of the work?
• Would refugees etc be unwilling to work on religious holidays e.g. Sundays etc?
• What if the traditional international food takes too long to cook?
• Logistics: how would we structure the cooking process and get everyone involved?