NNEdPro's Teaching Kitchens project empowers communities by sharing knowledge and skills through the medium of nutrition education.

It aims to enhance health and wellbeing for women, children and families across communities, especially urban slums, as well as beyond.

Why do we need (Mobile) Teaching Kitchens & What do they do?

More than 1.5 million people live in 3500 unregistered slums in Kolkata, India. Most of these are temporary with one room per family and no access to proper sanitation or clean water. Cooking is mostly done outdoors due to ventilation, and without hygienic practices or facilities.

An assessment of levels of nutrition and health education in mothers and children in urban slum areas in the city of Kolkata found that 85% of mothers and children were malnourished - this could be easily avoided if they had adequate levels of knowledge and awareness.

Our Mobile Teaching Kitchens conduct nutrition education workshops in slums with established relationships. They are multi-purpose and serve as a community hub for malnutrition screening and prevention, health promotion and disease prevention. They aim to be a safe haven within the slums, a sustainable health promotion tool, and build to support mothers with limited resources to achieve the best nutrition for their children and families.

Teaching Kitchens Model: Where are we now?

In October 2017 we launched Teaching Kitchens in two slums in Kolkata (watch this video from the launch ) and adopted the ‘See One-Do One-Teach One’ method of conducting Teaching Kitchen workshops (outlined below) which has had a visible community impact since launch. Since then earlier in 2018 we also launched a Mobile Teaching Kitchen unit.

We are currently exploring the possibility of utilising the Mobile Teaching Kitchen to run a micro-enterprise 'Tiffin Kitchen' to provide alternative livelihood opportunities for the women we have trained thus far. The micro-enterprise 'Tiffin Kitchen' soft launched in August 2018.

However, we are currently crowdfunding to support the day-to-day running of the mobile teaching kitchen programme.

Why do we need to crowdfund for Teaching Kitchens & What your funds can buy:

We need to equip the facilities, provide further training and materials, ensure that the Mobile Teaching Kitchen has the means to run, and build more Teaching Kitchens!

- Just £10 can help purchase basic supplies - (teaching ingredients e.g. vegetables, fruit, grains!) and utensils to run the Teaching Kitchen workshops.

- £20 (or more) can help towards the provision of electricity, gas, clean water, vehicle maintenance, health and safety, OR continuation of training for local mothers.

- £100 (or more) can contribute towards labour costs to support the project.

- £5000 can purchase a new Mobile Teaching Kitchen.

(All donations will go directly towards the project in India).

How we train via the 'See One-Do One-Teach One' method

Step 1: Training in action - Qualified dietitians and nutritionists share their skills and train volunteers creating Teaching Kitchen champions.

Step 2: Groups of champions, supported by dietitians and nutritionists, share their knowledge with women and children in slum communities through workshops where they learn about recognising a template ‘Plate of Good Health’ (with appropriate food swaps), and a balance of micro and macro nutrients from inexpensive and locally sourced foods prepared hygienically with attention to quality and taste .

Step 3: By the end of a workshop, the women (and children) that participated learn to share and teach each other about their newfound knowledge.

Be a change maker

Supporting Teaching Kitchens means supporting a project that is tackling both under-nutrition and over-nutrition at the grassroots level.

Teaching Kitchens for health are turning what we know in research into real-world results for a healthier more sustainable world. However we need your support for this innovative project - please share the campaign with your friends, family and networks!

Support & Share #TeachingKitchensEmpower

We promise to acknowledge all supporters across communications after the crowdfunding ends. If you opt-in, you will also receive special project related updates.

(If you are a health professional, teacher, community worker, dietitian nutritionist, prospective volunteer or NGO that would like to get involved in the project, please write to a.roy@nnedpro.org.uk)

Watch a short video from the Launch with the slum community!!!

We launched the project in India in October 2017, here's a short video about what went on at the launch in two slums where we demonstrated how the project would work to the community, conducted demos and held interactive Q&A's.

More useful links

Photo gallery: NNEdPro Teaching Kitchen Collection

In the news:

Mobile Teaching Kitchen - Nutrition on Wheels (Media India, August 29 2018)

Women power to the fore (Telegraph India, August 24 2018)

Biz hope for low-cost food from Kolkata slums (The Times of India, August 24 2018)

In local Bengali news (Ekhon Khobor, August 28 2018)

Teaching Kitchens to accelerate nutrition education (Media India, November 3 2017)

NNEdPro Team:

Read about the NNEdPro India Network People & Key Projects

Contact us:

• Join the mailing list

• E-mail: a.roy@nnedpro.org.uk

• Website: http://www.nnedpro.org.uk/

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• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nnedpro

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#TeachingKitchensEmpower