In January 2019 awarenet started a food program for our core group learners – resulting in more energetic and food-conscious learners!
Food is an important factor for our daily energy and productivity. The lack of nutrients makes us tired and lazy. Our learners go through a lot each day. When coming to our program in the afternoon they have already worked several hours at school and need nutritious food, which can enable them to participate in our program fully by thinking critically.
Our kitchen at the Joza Youth Hub is merely equipped with a microwave, but we find a lot of ways to offer a variety of food. The communal eating is a great social start of our sessions and provides us and the learners with an energetic beginning. It is also the place where we can check in with the learners on a personal basis and see what is going on in their lives.
Not only does the food program fill up the belly of our learners, it is also an excellent opportunity to bring in some informal learning. While eating we discuss the healthy values of food, how carbs give you energy and how fruits keep sickness away. We are also discussing the value of different kinds of food. This way learners are given ideas on how to make a healthy but also affordable meal.
Our team is international so every staff member has different experiences with food. We want to give learners new experiences and introduce them to food they may have never tried before. Sometimes we’ll go for the classic polony sandwich our learners love. But other times we make something more special like the Arabic dish “Ful”, which is easy to prepare with beans and yoghurt and fills you up for a long time.
Recipe of Ful
Ingredients (for 4 persons)
1 can of Chickpeas
1 can of White Beans
1 kg of Full Cream Yoghurt
3 – 4 Tomatoes
Parsley + Garlic +Lemon Juice
First Mix the Beans and Chickpeas with some garlic according to taste. Warm them up in the microwave. Chop the tomatoes in little dices and mix with parsley and lemon juice. Add the yoghurt to the chickpeas/ beans mix and top it up with the tomatoes and parsley. Traditionally this food is eaten with a side of Arabic flat bread. But our learners enjoyed it with simple bread too.
Saving Tip: It is possible to buy Chickpeas and Beans in its dry form and cook them ready on the stove. However we do not have this possibility in the Joza Youth Hub. You can also press a lemon yourself instead of buying the processed juice.
Excellent. Well done! Thanks for the recipe too
Thanks for your feedback. We are happy to hear you are keen to recooking the food. It is one of my favourite dishes and the learners also enjoyed it a lot.
Thank you for the excellent initiative, Meike. I’ll try the recipe out, too. 🙂