21 February 2023. We hosted our third installment of our “Food with Friends” series, combining healthy eating with public health outreach for the migrant community. This project is co-funded by a Community Inclusion Grant of the Portsmouth City Council.
From December 2022, WBI has hosted monthly “Food with Friends” dinners. Our first dinner in December featured a workshop on dental hygiene and Malaysian fusion cuisine. The second dinner in January 2023, was a curry over a talk on mental health and self-care, with a visit from Portsmouth City Councillor Chris Attwell, who came by to chat to participants.
[Presentation on the topic of dental hygiene at our first Food with Friends event delivered with the support of Portsmouth Dental Academy and the NHS]
[Group photo at our second Food with Friends event, with Councillor Chris Attwell from Portsmouth City Council]
Our third dinner coincided with Pancake Day in the UK (which we all LOVE). On the menu, we were delighted to serve a selection of traditionally cooked South-Asian food from a local caterer after a NHS-led presentation on maternity care. Midwife Mahfuza Aktar spoke to us about the inequalities in maternal outcomes for the minority population in the UK.
According to UK Government Equalities Office, it is noted that:
“Black British mothers are 5 times more likely to die in pregnancy or 6 weeks after childbirth, than White women. Women of mixed ethnicity have 3 times the risk, and Asian women almost twice the risk. BAME women are also at an increased risk of having a pre-term birth, stillbirth, neonatal death or a baby born with low birth weight.”
We thank Midwife Mahfuza Aktar for leading the very informative session on maternity care and signposting all the support available to families. We also thank Shipa Ahmed Khan, the Health Inequalities Lead at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust. For more information on NHS maternity care and services, please see here.
[Portsmouth University Hospital NHS Trust Midwife Mahfuza Aktar delivers a presentation on maternity care]
The third dinner was, by far the busiest we’ve been since the beginning of this series. A moment of home away from home is how we envision Food with Friends – a sanctuary in times of hardship. Our hearts grew bigger as the room filled up with an array of friendly faces, the warm smell of curry spices, and the kind of comfort you feel in a welcoming place.
Eating together is a ritual which connects people from all around the world together, something that reveals our shared humanity, no matter what our cultural, religious or social background is.
[Lovely message of appreciation received after the event from one of our guests.]
A feeling of connection was created not only through sharing a delicious dinner, but also through learning together. We thank our partners at Portsmouth University Hospitals NHS Trust for all their work to reduce health inequalities via public education, from the ground up!
The team at Work Better Innovations believe that a sustainable economy and decent future for all is predicated on kindness and good will, which our community deeply inspires in us. Thank you for coming, for learning, chatting and, not in the least, eating with us! Until next time 🙂
[Guests seated around the table during the NHS workshop on maternity care.]
