Cookery classes help Afghan pupil 'feel at home'

"It was good to see other people trying your food - I was looking at every side and everyone was eating it, finishing all the food, I loved it."

Nine-year-old Arsalan is one of 18 Afghan refugees at Albrighton Primary School, in Shropshire, where pupils have been bonding and learning about each other's cultures through food.

Each Tuesday, a small group of pupils have worked with a chef from Shrewsbury Food Hub to turn surplus food into a traditional Afghan dish, and later hosting a meal for families in their school hall.

Head teacher Karen Tearle said the scheme had made a greater impact on her than almost anything else in her 28 years of teaching.

"This is one of the most beautiful things I think I've done, to see the joy on the children's faces and the impact it's had," she added.

The project has seen local families share meals like Kabuli Pulao, the national dish of Afghanistan, and nine-year-old Arsalan said eating it alongside his friends had helped him to feel "at home".

Tearle said the school jumped at the chance to introduce the dinners after the idea was suggested to her by a group supporting the refugees and their families.

"I snapped their hand off because who wouldn't be interested in this," she said.

"They've [the refugees] had to adapt to our British culture and they've done that very, very well, but this was really nice because it was an opportunity for them to show us their culture."

She added that they also spent time creating menus and laying the tables to learn "soft skills", in addition to the Afghans teaching the other pupils how to say certain words, related to the cooking, in their language.

The biggest impact the dinners had was improving community cohesion, Tearle said.

One pupil, Brody, said he was very pleased it made his friends feel more included.

"It makes me feel proud because I get to share food with people I haven't known for long," he said.

Eight-year old Jonah said the meal went down a treat with his family.

"By the time I got my dad something, [then] went to get mine, I got back [to the kitchen] and it was all gone."

Tearle said for those children who had "been through turmoil, who had maybe had some trauma in their lives before they came here" the dinners, where they "shared something traditional to them", had had a wider impact than just learning how to cook.

"To be able to be really proud to be from Afghanistan and be proud of showing something from their culture, and for the other children to be very excited and complimentary, I think was wonderful."

All the children had "beams on their faces" during the Tuesday Night Dinners, she added.

"Bringing people together through food is such a wonderful way to get the community together and for people to talk, not just about the food, but beyond that," Tearle said.

She said the project had also helped to introduce pupils to new foods, such as chickpeas, and enabled them to learn the science behind food, including how salt changes food.

"Some of the children looked at the chickpeas and were like 'no way, I'm not eating that'," she said.

"What was wonderful was not one child refused to eat the chickpeas once they'd cooked it and were eating the meal, which I think shows children getting involved with the cooking themselves means they're much more likely to eat it."

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