Round 8 of the Cook and Eat Well Development Fund took place in November awarding a grant to Ivory Cocoons Workshops to organise activities exploring tropical foods in Stoke Aldermoor and Canley.

This takes the total to 40 projects distributing just over £190,000 to voluntary and community organisations across the city.  The fund has supported cooking activities within deprived communities and in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and a wide spread of groups has been successful including work with adults with learning disabilities, refugees and migrant communities, homeless adults, young people and people with mental health illness and long term conditions.

Several groups are now well into their projects and are starting to notice some real changes in participants eating habits and cooking skills. Grapevine ran a series of cooking sessions for adults with learning disabilities, many of whom had limited cooking skills. The success of their project is illustrated by one of their participants who had never cooked before and has now gone on to cook for her whole family on a number of occasions.

Coventry Carers Centre have been working with young carers and have noticed that members of the group are more likely to try new foods that they previously would not have eaten. In addition more young people have been eating the food that the group has cooked and are even getting more people to their sessions. Several young people have also gone on to reduce the amount of fast food and fizzy drinks that they eat.

Stoke Heath Community Centre have running cooking sessions during their youth club activities and have so far run 14 sessions teaching 48 young people aged 5-13 cooking skills including a child with a visual impairment who had never prepared food before. All those that participated were awarded certificates to recognise their learning and achievements.

For a full list of funded projects please click here.

For more information about the re-launch and further funding please click here.