community • education • health

Creating community with those affected by displacement

Eastablish works with sanctuary seeking women developing skills, building community, and enhancing their education.

 

We believe that:
  • being and doing normal things together establishes normality for those experiencing the trauma of displacement.
  • recognising and using existing skills and competencies establishes confidence for the future
  • creating peer-to-peer support networks establishes personal and collective growth

Cooking With English, Whitechapel

Between June and August 2024, we have been cooking together each week with 9 asylum seeking women and enjoying lots of delicious food from countries such as Algeria, Albania and Kurdistan. Each week we give one woman a budget to plan and buy food for the following week. We then cook the food together in a community kitchen, share the meal and have plenty of leftovers for the women to take back to their families in the hotels. 

There is some English learning and practice as we cook built into each session, mainly focussing on every day, relevant cooking vocabulary; learning by doing is the way we operate.

The women have been in tears as they cook saying they have not cooked a meal for themselves in 2, 5 or 7 years. Some say their children will only eat food cooked by them.

Cooking with English starts again in mid September and will run during term times.

“I haven’t eaten home cooked
food for ages, this is like a family”

If you would like to find out more, or discuss a partnership or project with us, get in touch using the form below.

3 + 6 =

Hanbury Hall,
22a Hanbury Street, 
LONDON 
E1 6QR