The session, which was held at St Paul’s African House in Shepparton, invited representatives from the Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Project, Greater Shepparton Foundation, St Vincent de Paul, FoodShare, Shepparton Family and Financial Services, Salvocare and Greater Shepparton City Council to observe and ask questions to CALD community chefs as they created meals from their cultures.
“The session was held largely to provide the emergency food relief services better information about the sorts of food that are staples in the refugee community and also to ensure they have enough food to feed their family,” Wise Well Women co-convenor Christine Nunn said.
“Often these families will receive 1kg of rice in their relief package, but these families could have up to 10 people in them and so 1kg isn’t enough ... they need closer to 4kg or 5kg per week.”
Chefs from South Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan all prepared meals using ingredients sourced from FoodShare, an organisation that aims to reduce food waste, food miles and increase good-quality nutritious food for people in financial hardship.
The chefs were each asked to create two dishes — a main meal and a dessert — giving the food agencies an opportunity to ask about the ingredients used and how they were used in the dishes.
Each year FoodShare, which distributes food to those in need in the community, saves more than 300 tonnes of food from ending up in landfill across Australia through its rescue, sorting and redistribution program.
However, in the past two years, thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, FoodShare has seen a sharp increase in demand.
This demand increase has highlighted the need for further training and information to ensure appropriate food and quantities are being provided to those in need.
“Some of our families would not eat, or did not know how to eat, some of the foods that we see as staples in our diet and so that’s what we have been trying to teach these agencies, that the foods we eat, our refugee communities might not or may not know how to eat,” Ms Nunn said.
“This issue, whilst it has been one for some time, has become more apparent during COVID when more people were needing support.”
Thanks to the success of the session, Ms Nunn hoped to hold other sessions in the future with more staff from the various emergency relief services as well as community members.
