Cooking Up Confidence at Roots Community Café

From samosas and chicken curry to barista coffee and new friendships, our first Roots Cookery Course is helping local women build skills, confidence and opportunities for the future.

This autumn, we've teamed up with Suffolk Refugee Support to welcome a wonderful group of women from Iranian, Kurdish and Afghan backgrounds into the Roots kitchen.

For many, it's their first experience of working in a café.

Over six weeks, they've been getting stuck into everything from food preparation and kitchen safety to making the perfect coffee and serving customers, guided by our Café Manager Mandy and Kitchen Assistant Isha.

And, of course, there's been plenty of cooking.

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The group has whipped up samosas, chicken curry, honey and almond cake, and healthy smoothies, while learning essential food hygiene skills that could help them gain a food safety qualification.

But one of the loveliest things to see has been the growing confidence.

One participant, who has spent the past 16 years in the UK raising her children, joined the course feeling shy and unsure. Just five weeks later, she's completed several volunteer shifts at Roots and is now hoping to find paid work in a kitchen.

It's exactly the kind of opportunity we hoped the course would create.

And we're saving something special for the final week.

Our participants will be taking over the kitchen to share treasured recipes from home, including stuffed dolma, lamb pilau and baklava.

The Roots team will be tasting everything, with the hope that some of these dishes might even find their way onto our café menu!

We're also exploring how to turn the skills and confidence gained during the course into longer-term volunteering and paid opportunities.

Watch this space. You might soon be tasting something new at Roots.