Nothing binds us together like food. Even the word ‘companion’ comes from Latin and means ‘with bread’ – someone friendly with whom to share a meal. We live in an age of seemingly countless restaurants and when an explosion of food delivery companies means more and more of us are opting for solo suppers, often enjoyed in front of screens. Our near-24/7 schedules and the rise of technology threaten to push companionable eating clear off the menu.

But, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. A new wave of clubs, projects and charities are using the unique power food has to bring people together, from newly arrived refugees to older or bereaved people, and from people looking for love, to global travellers.

Good journalism can be about good things too.

Subscribe to Positive News magazine for some serious optimism

Chef and political activist Kerstin Rodgers is credited with launching the supper club movement in Britain and says the idea was born after a trip to Cuba, where creating restaurants in people’s living rooms is common. Without enough money to open a “real” restaurant, she went for the DIY version. Rodgers’ Underground Restaurant, launched in her home in Kilburn, north London, in 2009, was a hit and has spawned countless variations on the theme, from Jewish suppers and African feasts to New Year’s Eve fondue nights.

“It’s really hard to make connections in a big city, especially if you’re single,” she says. “At a supper club, you’re obliged to make conversation. It’s about putting away your phone and making a social effort, relating to people face to face.”

Kerstin Rodgers is credited with launching the supper club movement in Britain. Image: Paul Winch Furness

Because there’s a difference between sharing food and sharing a meal. Anyone can order their own dish in a restaurant but at a supper club, people eat the same thing, often helping themselves to a portion and then passing it along, which encourages sociability, empathy and trust. “Eating together is a way of bonding. I do a lot of family-style dishing: you’re passing things to each other so you have to learn to share,” says Rodgers. And watching people go from zero to potential friends – or even lovers – across her dining-room table is magical. “Creating all these connections feels to me like a kind of witchcraft.”

While some supper clubs – and apps such as the now-defunct AirDine, which allowed users to attend dinner parties at strangers’ homes around the world – may cater in particular for young professionals feeling alienated by big-city living, the act of sharing food goes far deeper. “It can be very powerful,” says Julia Turshen, chef and author of recipe book Feed the Resistance. “If you have a bunch of people sitting around a table in a conference room it can feel tense and unnatural – but if you put food on that table and it becomes a meal, it goes from being a meeting to a more relaxed set-up.”

At a supper club, you’re obliged to make conversation. It’s about putting away your phone and making a social effort, relating to people face to face

What’s more, food can change perceptions. “Consider whether the recipe you’re cooking was written by someone who’s had a different
 life experience to you. Read about what that food means to them and understand their story,” recommends Turshen, who mentions the case of Derek Black in the US. Black’s father was a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. An invitation from a college classmate to a Shabbat dinner led him to reconsider the views he had adopted without question.

Turshen’s book – which features recipes alongside resources and essays from activists – has a political edge but its message is universal and pleasingly simple: dishes can foster community while providing sustenance for the mind and soul. So find a way to feed your community, she urges. The first step? Invite someone for dinner who’s different from you; talking about the food you’re sharing can build bridges. “You can’t talk about food without talking about everything that matters,” notes Turshen. “The environment, migrants’ rights, gender, race and sexuality. All these things come up when we talk about food.”

Finding a place at the table

Even the smallest of efforts can make a big difference. Consider the Casserole Club, which allows an extra portion of your home-cooked supper to be dropped off to an older neighbour who could benefit from a warm, nutritious meal and a friendly chat. What if we were all able to shop at places like the e5 Roasthouse in Poplar, London, where the employees are refugee women who have been trained up by the nearby e5 Bakehouse in the art of baking bread?

It’s a model that works well: training in the hospitality sector, combined with English lessons, because it helps in a practical sense but also offers refugees agency and allows them to give back to the community, mitigating feelings of helplessness. Migrateful does just that. Founded by Jess Thompson, the project involves asylum seekers, refugees and migrants teaching their traditional cuisines to paying customers.

Migrateful connects asylum seekers, refugees and migrants with people curious to learn about their traditional cuisines. Image: George Thompson

“Having regular contact with 
the British public is great for confidence building,” says Thompson. “Feeling valued as a teacher can be so important. Many of the people who come to Migrateful are asylum seekers; they are often waiting for the state to help them. This is a chance for them to use their skills and give something back.”

Elahe Reza, 48, came to Britain from Iran a decade ago. Although she is a psychologist 
by training, her English isn’t good enough to allow her to qualify here. Cooking sessions at Migrateful 
give her a real boost, she explains, because she was previously too shy
 to speak to strangers. It’s also a form of expression. “Now I feel a lot more confident, even though I still make mistakes,” says Reza. “I don’t have the words to tell you everything that is in my heart – about the cooking, the new friends, my new skills – everything.”

To support its participants, Migrateful also offers travel card credit and supermarket vouchers, as well as helping refugees get their qualifications converted to acceptable equivalents.

The environment, migrants’ rights, gender, race and sexuality. All these things come up when we talk about food

Stories On Our Plate (SOOP) was founded in 2016 to use food and storytelling to overcome differences, challenging negative attitudes towards cooks with refugee and migrant backgrounds. Central to SOOP’s work are monthly ‘food stories’ supper clubs.

One recent event featured the food of Jenny Phung, who drew upon her Cantonese and Vietnamese heritage to cook up seasonal dishes based on humble street cafes of China. Another featured the flavours and stories of Palestine, with chef Nisrin Abuorf. Dishes included hurra’ usba’o, a sweet and savoury dish of lentils cooked in pomegranate molasses, with garlic and mini dumplings, garnished with coriander and crispy pitta. And then came pistachio namourah, a sweet and sticky semolina cake draped with orange blossom syrup and covered with chopped pistachios.

Stories On Our Plate uses food and storytelling to challenge negative attitudes towards cooks with refugee backgrounds. Image: Maria Bell

A similar enterprise is Mazi Mas (meaning ‘with us’ in Greek), an award-winning social enterprise that provides training and employment to help refugee women build careers in the food industry. Running pop-up restaurants and kitchen residencies, the women of Mazi Mas put their existing culinary skills to use in professional settings, leading to the practical experience necessary to start their own food businesses or be employed in others.

Social enterprise Mazi Mas offers training to support refugee women into careers in the food industry. Image: Mazi Mas

It’s not just refugees who benefit from this type of exchange. While working in a homeless hostel in north London, Meg Doherty realised that communal cooking brought a type of energy and enthusiasm far beyond anything she’d previously seen there.

“I started thinking about the stories we tell with food – and how we could challenge the stigma of homelessness through this. I think people do want to help with homelessness, especially during winter, but often don’t know how to do it.”

This is where Doherty’s catering company and pop-up supper club, Fat Macy’s, has been making a real difference. Launched in 2016, it
 aims to teach people multiple sides 
of catering and earn enough to move out of the hostels. “We wanted it to be about people having ownership of the food and the cooking, taking positive steps to get out of the hostels, rather than it being something that happens to them,” she explains.

Fat Macy’s teaches catering skills to Londoners who are living in temporary accommodation. Image: Benoit Grogan-Avignon

An unforeseen benefit is the kind of conversation that take place at Fat Macy’s events. Guests meet the people cooking and serving the food and the setting allows for a warmer personal interaction, one that leads frequently to genuine offers of help, from work experience to jobs.

The social benefit of cooking
 for – and eating with – people is 
felt firmly at Cook to Give, based in Dudley, Northumberland. Run by charity Forward Assist which supports military veterans in adjusting to civilian life, its mission is to teach unemployed veterans to cook – and get qualifications along the way. Those who take part prepare weekly meals for older veterans: their youngest chef is 22 and one of the regular veterans is 100. In a community afflicted
 by PTSD and in which many miss 
the camaraderie of life in the forces, interacting in this way across the generations is a chance to share their experiences and anecdotes and grow confidence. Last year, volunteers prepared more than 3,000 free meals – from herby spaghetti bolognese to pineapple upside down cake.

At a time when difference threatens to pull communities apart, cooking and eating are among the things we’re guaranteed to hold in common. So, could it have a unique power to bridge divides and feed our spirits? The proof, you could say, is in the pudding.

Read more: A place at the table: two inspiring UK food projects
Read more: Brewing good: three beer-for-good projects

Featured image: Marianne Chua

This article is featured in issue 92 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe now to get the magazine delivered to your door each quarter.

The post Eating with strangers: bringing people together through food appeared first on Positive News.

Plans are being drawn up by the government in New Zealand to create a new visa for climate change refugees. If implemented, it would be a world-first.

James Shaw – the Green party leader made climate change minister in the new Labour-led coalition government – said it was considering introducing “an experimental humanitarian visa category” for Pacific Ocean islanders who find themselves displaced by rising sea levels.

Discover the good news that matters.

Subscribe to Positive News, the inspiring current affairs magazine

“It is a piece of work that we intend to do in partnership with the Pacific islands,” Shaw told Radio New Zealand.

Climate change is set to displace millions of people over the coming decades; among the most vulnerable are the inhabitants of low-lying Pacific islands such as Kiribati, which is slowly disappearing under the ocean.

It is a piece of work that we intend to do in partnership with the Pacific islands

A number of people from Kiribati and Tuvalu have already applied to live in New Zealand, claiming they are victims of climate change. However, their bids have been rejected because the country does not currently accommodate environmental refugees; only people who risk being persecuted by race, religion, nationality or by membership of a political or religious group.

A mother and her daughter in Kiribati. Land there is slowly being consumed by the sea forcing people to relocate. Image: Jonas Gratzer / Getty Images

Creating this category of visa would, in theory, make it easier for future applicants, but it remains to be seen how New Zealand would legally determine whether or not someone seeking asylum was able to live in their home country.

Tired of divisive, scaremongering media?

Support constructive journalism instead

The post New Zealand considers creating visas for climate change refugees appeared first on Positive News.

Fereshteh Forough was born as an Afghan refugee in Iran, one of eight children. A year after the fall of the Taliban, she moved to Afghanistan where she studied computer science, and later Berlin where she earned a master’s degree. Then she founded Code to Inspire, the first all-female coding school in Afghanistan. By teaching girls in-demand programming skills, she hopes to help them be independent.

— How did your experience as a refugee shape you?

In Iran, I got the impression that people think refugees have come to take your job and to steal opportunities out from under you. On the other hand, I learned that great things can start with empty hands. You learn to get the most out of the least, the value of adaptation and to appreciate even small opportunities.

— How hard was it for you to access education in Iran?

Being treated as an unwanted guest is not a pleasant experience. I don’t remember how many times the schools rejected my siblings and I, but I do remember how many times my father knocked on each office’s door to get the documents allowing us to attend school. My father was always very supportive of us pursuing education and helped us with our homework. My mother learned to make dresses which she sold to buy us school supplies.

A childhood photo of Fereshteh and her family

— What was it like returning to Afghanistan?

We moved to Herat in 2002, packing everything in a big truck. I was very unhappy to move from a place where I had so many friends and memories to one I only knew through my mother’s photo al-bum and as a war zone on TV.

I remember it was a very windy day with dust in the air, and that there weren’t many trees. It took us hours to get to the city. By the time we were close, it was getting dark. Old lanterns hung outside the shops. At the new house, we got our water from a well. We only had electricity for three hours each day.

Give stories, not stuff

Inspire someone this Christmas with a Positive News magazine gift subscription

— Did you experience a culture shock travelling to Berlin, and beyond since?

I love Berlin. It is a very diverse city. I like to travel and learn about people and new cultures. People from certain countries or religions face discrimination – extra check-in time at airports for example – but I’m used to it now. I won’t let my gender and ethnic background set me back.

— Why did you set up Code to Inspire?

Most of the time in Afghanistan, even if a female student graduated from a computer science course, she wouldn’t have been able to find a job in the field. If women are offered jobs outside of their hometown, the majority of families wouldn’t let them leave. Young women can’t travel by ground even with a male companion. Decades of war, internal conflicts and political instability in Afghanistan have destroyed the country’s basic social service mechanisms.

We opened the first coding school for girls in Afghanistan in 2015. We run free, after-school programmes: safe places where girls can enjoy learning.

You learn to get the most out of the least, the value of adaptation and to appreciate even small opportunities

— What challenges and obstacles have you had to overcome in doing so?

It has been no easy feat! Preparing the right documents to operate as a non-profit organisation and to raise the necessary funds for the coding school were huge tasks.

But I am persistent and energised. It gives me hope to know that 50 girls in Afghanistan are learning and growing every day because of Code to Inspire.

Fereshteh Forough, image: Alena Soboleva

— What do you love about technology?

Coding is a language like any other, and a great tool for communicating. I love the creativity and problem-solving aspect. Knowledge is power. Technology – its power and connectivity – has helped make my dream come true.

— What are you most proud of in your life?

Students who have never before touched a computer or used the internet are now able to make webpages and code because of us. Every day when I wake up, I check Twitter to see inspiring messages from students about what they’ve achieved. Our students are bold, courageous and inspiring. They are agents of change, in a country where women have been deprived for decades.

Destruction is easy, construction is difficult, so we have a lot of work left to do

— What makes you feel positive about the future?

During the Taliban regime, fewer than a million students were enrolled in schools, and no women. Today, nearly seven million children are enrolled in schools: around 37 per cent of them girls. There are hundreds of public and private universities. A study by Kabul University found that 40 per cent of STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] students are women.

As of 2014, 90 per cent of residential areas in Afghanistan have telecommunication and information coverage. There are now 23.2 million mobile phone users in the country. In total, 28 per cent of the seats in parliament are held by women.

These numbers show that progress is being made in Afghanistan. Destruction is easy, construction is difficult, so we have a lot of work left to do, but I am hopeful of a peaceful, bright future for Afghanistan.

Featured image: Markus Spiske

The post Unlocking the code: teaching girls in Afghanistan coding appeared first on Positive News.

Mussa, a Kurdish-Syrian boy, had been living for months in an unofficial camp at the Greek port of Piraeus when he met photographer Nessim Stevenson.

Strong, stubborn and cunning, the five-year-old spent his days teasing volunteers and sneaking into a storage warehouse in search of juice and croissants. A few days before he was photographed, he had led a group of friends out of the makeshift camp for a trip to the beach, only returning under the cover of dark.

Stevenson said: “His expression here represents the pride and resilience of his people despite the desperate living conditions in the camp and the uncertain future they face.”

Photography: Nessim Stevenson

The post Resilience in a Greek refugee camp: the ‘boy of steel’ appeared first on Positive News.

“We walked for 11 days and nights to the Iranian border. It was pouring with rain and Saddam’s helicopters were surrounding us. We lost my sister and her husband.”

These are the memories of Salah Rasool, a Welsh-Kurdish father and humanitarian. His missing relatives were found alive three months after they sought refuge that night, but this wasn’t the first or the last time they would be forced to flee Iraqi Kurdistan.

The first exodus came in 1975, when Rasool was just a baby. His family had to abandon home again during the Iran-Iraq war when he was 16, just before his pregnant mother suffered a stillbirth. Then the Kurdish civil war hit and they fled a third time in 1996.

Rasool describes how each time they returned to an empty house, having lost everything: “I felt that nothing could be permanent as there was never political or social stability,” he says. “It made me feel powerless and hopeless. I realised that our lives and future were in the power of a dictator and his brutal regimes.”

After the family’s third exodus, Rasool felt he could not endure another. The young biology graduate trekked across Iran’s mountains in search of a new home. To get to the UK, he spent nine months working as a tailor, hidden in a shop, where he was “at the mercy of the greedy, inhumane owner”. He earned just enough to make it to mainland Europe by foot and endured a long, harrowing journey to the UK, where he was finally granted leave to remain. “I was free to work, study, to be treated as a human. My world had opened,” he says.

I was free to work, study, to be treated as a human. My world had opened

But his journey wasn’t over quite yet. After several weeks visiting Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, Rasool followed a friend’s suggestion and ventured into Wales. The hills dotted with houses descending to the city of Swansea immediately reminded Rasool of his native landscape. “My heart felt open and for the first time in many years I was ready to make my life,” he says. “I felt I was free.”

The Welsh concept of hiraeth is similar to homesickness. It is nostalgia for a loss of some kind, often connected to a sense of homeland, hovering between sad and wistful. This bittersweetness is part of Rasool’s new life: “While I’m here in Wales, I still count Kurdistan as a home. And when I’m in Kurdistan, I feel that Wales is where I’ve made my home,” he explains. “If I dwell too much it makes me sad, so instead I think both are home – my life has been enriched. I feel privileged.”

Rasool’s first job in the UK was in a factory that made crisps, and in his spare time, he volunteered as an interpreter. Before long he was offered a full-time role with the Welsh Refugee Council, helping others seeking new lives in Wales. “It made me feel like I could contribute and build bridges,” he says. “I felt valued.”

Rasool’s love for his adopted home is clear. “Wales made it possible for me to find a house, get a job, join English and Welsh classes and to meet people – warm, humorous and honest people. There really is something magical about this land.”

He met his Welsh wife while working at the Welsh Refugee Council and the couple now have two children: “I became part of something permanent, bright and happy,” he says. The couple’s wedding, nearly 10 years ago, made national headlines for their decision to take the vows in Welsh – a celebration of Rasool’s new homeland.

Wales made it possible for me to find a house, get a job, learn English and meet warm, humorous and honest people

Now living in Cardiff, Rasool is an active member of the Kurdish-Welsh community, and is keen to help others settle in. His advice for newcomers? “Learn the language, meet local people and other communities and step out of your comfort zone,” he says. “Volunteer, set yourself challenges and give something back to the UK.”

He admits it can be difficult to strike a balance between looking back and moving forwards. “Don’t live in the past, but don’t forget your roots,” he says. “Appreciate the freedom and make the most of your new lives.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_raw_html]JTNDaDMlM0VXYW50JTIwbW9yZSUyMG9mJTIwb3VyJTIwY29udGVudCUzRiUzQyUyRmgzJTNF[/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text][contact-form-7 id=”19770″ title=”Mailchimp Homepage Form”][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post The Kurdish refugee who found a new home in Wales appeared first on Positive News.