20 March 2023. WBI welcomed the arrival of spring with the fourth run of Food with Friends, a community dinner alongside a NHS-supported health workshop.
We have been running Food with Friends since December 2022 – thanks in large part to Portsmouth City Council’s Community Inclusion Grant to improve migrant integration and well-being in our community.
Our fourth dinner was particularly optimistic and uplifting. Together, we went through a harsh winter marked by the cost-of-living crisis. Food with Friends seeks to provide a safe, social space to improve our wellbeing.
[From left to right: workshop leader Emma-Jane Mundle from Portsmouth University, Councillor Chris Attwell from Portsmouth City Council and Shipa Ahmed Khan, Health Inequalities Lead for Portsmouth University Hospitals NHS Trust at the WBI’s Food with Friends’ March dinner]
Our health theme this time was on Basic First Aid. We are grateful to Portsmouth University’s Emma-Jane Mundle for this edition’s fun workshop on First Aid. Thank you, Emma, for the inspiring workshop!
We were also happy to see Portsmouth City Councillor Chris Attwell and John Ashlin, Action Asylum Project Lead for Portsmouth, who both stopped by to eat with us and chat.
Before dinner, participants were given an induction into the basics of First Aid by Emma-Jane Mundle – a practicing paramedic for the NHS and teaching fellow at Portsmouth University.
The empowering session discussed how the patient’s chances of survival increase from 7% up to 70-80% if they receive First Aid. This means that even some basic training in First Aid can potentially save someone’s life. Participants were then encouraged to practice chest compressions on medical practice mannequins and use defibrillators, putting into practice what they have just learned.
[Participants having a go at applying Basic First Aid to medical practice mannequins provided for the workshop]
It was lovely to see everyone shift from being a little shy or unsure at the start of the First Aid session to eventually getting involved all the way through.
Dinner continued our focus on healthy eating, with a balanced spread of protein (roast chicken), rice with prawns, fresh salad and traditional Bangladeshi dessert doughnuts, all made by local caterers.
[Food with Friends’ traditionally-cooked buffet, courtesy of our local catering partners.]
Despite the rain outside, everyone were in high spirits. We had a Taylor Swift and Punjaabi pop mix playing in the background, delicious food and party glow sticks for the children (and those who are still kids at heart).
Our fourth Food with Friends was the last event on the Community Inclusion Grant. By matching the grant from our own funding as a social enterprise, we were able to run four dinners that covered the four winter months of 2022-23. We would like to take the opportunity to express our gratitude to all our kind supporters, from Portsmouth City Council, Portsmouth University Hospitals NHS Trust and to our individual workshop leaders.
We would also like to thank the participants who came to Food with Friends and showed such wonderful support to community health education initiatives. We are very touched that participants often showed up earlier, out of their own accord, to help us set up and then stayed behind to help us clear.
Each month, our WBI team looked forward to Food with Friends. It felt like a family dinner together, where the best conversations often took place in the kitchen and where difficult things felt more bearable because we were together. Without all the community support that we have been so fortunate to receive, this project would not have been possible.
Thank you all for making a difference in our local migrant community from the ground up. And we will bring this project back! Please get in touch if you would like to contribute. Stay tuned.
