Parkdale Community Health Centre
Latin American Women’s Community Kitchen

Sandra Godoy, the coordinator, has been involved with community kitchens for almost ten years. The Latin American Women’s Community Kitchen started about three years ago. It began based on the needs of the women involved with other programs at the Parkdale Community Health Centre.

Target

Latin American women who have been involved with programs at the Parkdale Community Health Centre.

Goals

The Latin American Women’s community kitchen aims to provide a space where Latin American women can meet other Latin American women. The coordinator works to ensure an environment where the women feel relaxed and comfortable is created. This allows the women to communicate at ease with each other in a familiar language. The kitchen provides the opportunity to learn and share cooking skills and new recipes.

Location

The community kitchen takes place in the kitchen at the Parkdale Community Health Centre. The kitchen has many windows and one of them looks out onto the community garden that has recently been started. It is hoped that some of the harvest from the community garden may one day be used in the meals at the community kitchen. The kitchen is divided into three areas, the meeting room where eating, chatting and food preparation occurs, the fully equipped kitchen and the children’s area.

Operation

The group meets once per month. Participants usually arrive at 10 am. They are welcomed with a snack and discussion lead by Sandra about what the day’s activities will be. The coordinator also provides information about events that are happening around the community that the women might be interested in. The women do not pay a fee to participate and childcare is usually provided.

Once everyone has been given copies of the recipes the cooking begins. Since the main kitchen area is quite small much of the food preparation tasks are done on cutting boards in the meeting area. Unlike many community kitchens the women do no sign up for tasks but work cooperatively to ensure that everything that needs to be done get done. While cooking the women decide what they will make at the next community kitchen, and they also decide who will do the shopping. There is a great deal of autonomy in the operation of the community kitchen.

Guest speakers may sometimes come to a cooking session. Guest speakers are asked to come in based on the needs of the women involved with the community kit hen. Some of the speakers have come in to talk about immigration and employment issues.

Once the meal has been prepared the women and children eat together in the meeting room. Most of the meal is shared on site and women rarely take food home.

Benefits

The community kitchen allows participants to learn and share cooking ideas while at the same time developing support networks. By providing childcare the program is accessible to most women. Other kitchen sessions have been offered at the Parkdale Community Health Centre and many of the women involved with the community kitchen have been able to attend, a favourite was a Caribbean cooking session. The coordinator hopes that the community kitchen may one day expand to do catering.

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