How we helped families in east Mitcham to learn and eat together without gadgets
This Easter break, the New Horizon Centre has been full of energy. We ran a three-day series of family cooking workshops that help us to demonstrate that giving children fresh ingredients and the space to cook, they can be persuaded to put down their phones.
The UK government recently highlighted recommendations to limit children’s screen time and encourage healthier, more active lifestyles, and so, encouraged by our friends in Merton Council and enabled by a very talented work experience student, we helped to shift the focus away from screens for a few hours a day.
Three days offline, designed by a teenager
The workshops were designed by a student of health and social care who has been doing her work experience with us. She is a remarkable student, with her own unique path through education, and she speaks five languages. She spends time chatting in French and Spanish as well as excellent English, and we asked her to design the workshops so that they had an authentic young appeal.
We had to work at marketing our offer, even though it was free to attend, and encourage busy families to add it to a busy holiday schedule. We wanted children to learn cooking skills, and also to spend time with their parent or carer as well as other siblings, chatting about food and culinary traditions as they prepared food together, and ate it together. The longer we kept their attention on cooking and food, the further away we could push the phones and tablets.
We think it worked – numbers grew over the three days and by the third day we had a lively group of 15 in the space! It was so popular that we were asked to do another session after Easter and we were delighted to agree.
Recycling
Earlier this year we were lucky enough to make contact with a great community project in Pudsey on the outskirts of Leeds. With them, we have introduced a children’s clothes offer – good quality, clean, secondhand clothes suitable for home and school, as well as the possibility of extending this arrangement to include baby clothes. We offered the participants the chance to select good quality coats, joggers, school shoes, T-shirts and more, whilst they were waiting for their food to cook. We are looking for feedback on this project and would love to extend it, including working with our partners Unique Talent, who are also setting up a clothes recycling project. See their poster below and watch this space!
Why do we do it?
As the “glue” of the Pollards Hill and east Mitcham communities, we at the Commonside Trust know that these sessions are about more than just recipes and clothes. They are about preventing the isolation that can come with excessive tech use and giving parents and carers the tools to bond with their children in a high-pressure world. They are about saving money, making friends, understanding nutrition and leading healthier lives. Above all, the are about having fun!
We’d like to continue running these sessions, including a weekly after-school cooking club
They don’t cost much to run, EXCEPT the use of the kitchen and utilities. Our main costs are staff time at London Living Wage, and use of the building and utilities. We rely also on volunteers and donated food, but we cannot avoid all costs – no one can. Volunteers are great, but local people need local jobs to boost the local economy too and this is one of many reasons why our small staff workforce is very, VERY local!
