Brownhill students are cooking

Year 10 students at Brownhill Learning Community with chef Afruj Chowdhury, Stella Oldham, Brownhill Learning Community, Ben Ingham, Safeguard Group Education and Community Lead

A group of year 10 students at Brownhill Learning Community in Rochdale have risen to the challenge of TV chefs like Jamie Oliver and got themselves into the kitchen.

In just three short sessions the students have chopped, diced and wokked everything from a healthy chicken wrap, to curry from scratch and crowned themselves as Chapati Champions.

It’s all courtesy of a brand new healthy eating and lifestyle project called 'Cook Eat Talk', the brainchild of two businesses, Safeguard Group and SFNPR and celebrity chef Afruj Chowdhury.

Afruj explains: “I’ve worked in higher education for many years and become increasingly frustrated that young people don’t know how great and easy it is, to choose healthy food and learn how to cook it.

"Schools do a good job at promoting the ‘five a day’ but our lifestyles at home are changing, we don’t sit down and eat together as much as we used to and traditional kitchen skills that I learned from my mum and sisters, are being lost.

"What’s key though is that the catering industry still needs those skills and at the moment there’s no opportunity for young people to learn them soon enough, in their school and college careers.”

Stella Oldham one of the leads at Brownhill Learning Community, a unit for young people excluded from mainstream education, says: "We are very excited to give our students the opportunity to work with a quality chef, who clearly knows all about food and healthy eating.

"Our students are really enjoying the sessions and we hope to form a strong partnership with Safeguard and make links with other employers in this important labour market sector.”