Strong Voices

Young people are lining up to join cooking classes at Comcol North Canterbury thanks to a partnership between Comcol and the IHC North Canterbury Association.

The classes kicked off last year and 21 trainee cooks each spent 9–10 weeks in the Comcol kitchen learning about equipment safety, hand hygiene, safe food handling and food shopping.

Association committee member Kay Pearce says the introductory courses will continue in 2024 for students 18 and over. This year the project will also move up a level with graduates from the basic course being subsidised by the association to enrol in a Level 2 course.

“We are going to subsidise it by 50 percent. The committee feels this is a fair way of sharing funding to those in our community with intellectual disabilities and ensure as many people as possible have the opportunity of extending their skills learnt in Level 1,” Kay says.

Comcol Programme Coordinator and Tutor Brooke Close will run the two courses, supported by Faye Gread.

Brooke says the advanced course, being offered initially as a pilot, builds on the trainees’ kitchen skills with more meal-based cooking, but adds an introduction to barista skills and education outside the classroom. Both courses take seven students and start in February.

Brooke says the courses are not just about cooking. “We collect the eggs from the chickens and gather food from the garden.” And she says there’s a lot of socialising.

The IHC North Canterbury Association committee came up with the funds to pay for three sessions in 2023. The introductory courses are fully funded by the association.

Caption: Trainee cooks celebrate the end of their 2023 course with Christmas treats (from left:) Nathan Begley, Sarah Stalker, Richard Bisley, Kelly Gilbert, Bayden Doggett, Brooke Close (Tutor), Zara Backhurst, Emma Tull and Noah Fearnley.

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