A warm welcome…
A few weeks ago I was invited to World Vision’s launch for their new campaign, Share A Meal. As it was a food event that included a live cooking demo with British Bake Off finalist Selasi, I decided to invite my bestie and pastry-chef-turned-mumpreneur Dinah (@DinahsDesserts) who’s a BIG fan of the guy.
‘Share A Meal’ is World Vision’s latest campaign that’s all about bringing people together with food, sharing each other’s good company and helping out others at the same time. The Share a Meal launch was held in Covent Garden. There was a speech from the fundraising director of World Vision as well as a speech from Great British Bake-Off star, Selasi Gbormittah. Selasi spoke about his experience in Uganda and meeting the people in the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement.
He mentioned about their living conditions and the food shortage which was very shocking – the food crisis meant that every person could only have the following rations for the whole month:
- 6kg sorghum/maize grains
- 1/5kg corn soy blend
- 300ml vegetable oil
- 0.15kg salt
- 1.2kg beans
… and that’s it. Nothing else – no meat, no poultry, no fish.
It’s not really a meal at all, if anything it just about meets the basic needs for the body’s macronutrients (grains for carbs, oil for fat, and legumes for protein). I wouldn’t like to live on this kind of diet but for those South Sudanese refugees there’s really no other option for them. Men, women, children and even babies are all subject to this diet which is why a lot of the younger children are suffering from severe malnutrition. Selasi explained to us that they do try and grow their own fruit and veg but what’s produced is only half-decent enough to eat. He also joked that when he cooks at home he enjoys seasoning his food but when he was at the settlement the only form of seasoning that was available was salt and the people had to add a lot of it to make the food tasty as the taste of sorghum is very bitter.
Live cooking demo with Selasi
Canapés and drinks were flowing once the speeches had ended. Dinah and I got a chance to speak to many people including the digital/social media team of World Vision who put on the fabulous event as well as a couple of the ambassadors of the charity. Just before Selasi wrapped up his speech to start cooking, he said something that everyone in the room agreed on which was “everybody loves food” and boy, is he 100% spot on!
Selasi showed us how to make a simple yet tasty dish, chicken satay sticks. They were very tasty and easy to make – it took about 15 mins in total (about 5mins prep and 10mins cooking) and had everyone waiting eagerly to have a bite.
“Share A Meal is a delicious opportunity for you to get together with others this autumn, to share good company, good and conversation – and to help vulnerable children at the same time.” – World Vision
Share A Meal with The Greenwich Mummy!
I will be hosting my own Share A Meal event mid-October – the date is still to be decided but it will either be the 2nd or 3rd weekend of the month and I will be rustling up some good homemade Vietnamese food of course! I have to take it back to my roots for such an event.
I will be posting the full recipes on the blog during that week and hopefully vlog the meal for you guys too! I’ll also be going live on social media for the meal so don’t forget to watch it on my Instagram live at @mannyngo.
Get involved!
It’s so easy and for such a great cause. As Selasi said, everybody loves food so this is an event that bound to go down a treat. Gather your friends and family together, cook a meal then perhaps get them to donate what they think the meal would be worth. Even raising just as little as £10 can help a lot…
[ £10 ]
could help train three volunteers to support new breastfeeding mums
[ £32 ]
could help a mum learn to prepare nutritious and healthy meals for her family
[ £93 ]
could train a new village health worker, to reach vulnerable new mums and babies in the most remote communites in Uganda
Just download the Share A Meal pack from the World Vision website. While you’re on there you can also enter the competition to share a meal with GBBO Selasi himself. Fancy that! I’m sure my bestie Dinah has already entered… *wink wink* (PS. she may kill me when she sees that last comment.. love you girl!)
#ShareAMeal
get involved here
NB. This post was written to help raise awareness for World Vision’s new campaign, Share A Meal. All of the words, opinions and content are my own with World Vision press photos credited respectively.
