As seen as InYourArea
A grassroots organisation and social justice movement which started life as a food bank has been teaching people how to cook.
Himmah was founded over 10 years ago in Nottingham and now delivers more than 250 food parcels every week. Over the festive period, the team delivered 3,200 food parcels and 1,200 Christmas hampers filled with treats, toys and reading books to ensure no child felt left out.
Himmah works to engage with and help individuals and families change their lives. This is achieved by working to empower communities through rights-based activity, arts, wellbeing programmes and education.
The group has since expanded and taken up many projects around poverty, race and education with the vision of making its users more independent.
One of the ways it aims to achieve this goal is by holding cooking classes. The key to the classes is knowing how to cook the basics, using equipment and, above all, being safe whilst doing so.
With support from external organisations and around six to seven people per class, they have been a real hit.
So far, they have made chilli, with one of the service users suggesting putting crushed Doritos on top and in week two, they made Harissa vegetarian meatballs with cous cous and apple scones.
Feedback shows users are keen to get involved and learn some life skills.
Other projects for Himmah include a weekly Hot Meals kitchen, a school uniform project, food print shop, allotment garden, basic skills training and more.
To find out more about Himmah, its projects, volunteering or to donate, visit www.himmah.org. To see Himmah’s funded project on ActionFunder head over here.