Ban heard about the Time to Grow programme from another participant. She knew she wanted to do something to benefit the community and use her previous skills working with a social enterprise combining cooking and ESOL activities, but without the knowledge and support, she didn’t know where to start.
She specifically wanted to focus on women from different backgrounds who want to improve their English and learn new skills in cooking including how to cook healthily – with the intention that this would hellp them to work in the future and be active members of their communities, Having participated in the programme she now wants to expand this to generate income through catering with a specific focus on sharing the variety and flavours of Arabic food. While she had tried this to a small degree with friends in the past she now has bigger designs to pursue.
During her participation in the programme she learned about the Multicultural Christmas event to which members of the Flourish Together network were invited to participate. She initially considered selling food, but then she was invited to provide catering for the event. She received some 1:1 support from the programme facilitator to build her confidence and belief that she could do this, even though she didn’t have a background in business. The feedback from participants about the catering was incredibly positive and she really enjoyed the work. She approached the event as a learning opportunity, learning from another caterer about food presentation, portion sizing and transporting the food.
Ban says “I thank Flourish Together because you gave me this opportunity. Attending the course and meeting the people is a very good step, a very positive step in my life…because I never thought I could do something like that.”
She describes having learned something new at every session of the Time to Grow programme. While some sessions were particularly challenging, it supported her in looking at what she needs at the early stages of her business. She says “meeting other ladies who are starting a business is really empowering. If they can do it, maybe I can as well.”
Her next step in terms of developing her business is to start an Instagram page, develop a logo for her business and put together images of her work to share and publicise what she can offer.
We look forward to working with Ban again to cater for future Flourish events.
