WHO WE ARE:
The MAZI Project a organisation that empower marginalised 16 - 25 year olds through food. We support care leavers, young asylum seekers, youth recovering from homelessness and fleeing domestic violence.
We use the notion of breaking bread and the power of the dinner table to reduce isolation, build confidence and make young people feel extraordinary, helping them reach their full potential.
WHAT WE DO:
We provide weekly recipes kits and educational cooking workshops and events to help open doors to employment opportunities within the hospitality industry for young people facing food poverty.
Our weekly aMAZIng recipes kits involve, sending a text with a large array of our TASTY and SEASONAL meals asking each young person to CHOOSE up to 3 recipes. All our boxes include locally sourced fresh and high quality ingredients ingredients, pre-weighed and mixed dry ingredients and a simple to follow recipe card; ready for the young people to cook three nutritious meals.
Our educational cooking programmes and catering service focuses on giving marginalised groups across the city the chance to experience Bristol’s renowned food scene, learn about where food comes from and how they can cook sustainably. We have a number of programmes for organisations like 1625 Independent People, the council and for the past 2 years have cooked for Creative Youth Network’s Eid event.
Finally, we work with our young people with a keen interest in hospitality to host their own pop up events as a way to boost their confidence, provide employment opportunity and raise money for The MAZI Project. A great example is Leo whose Japanese pop up we helped launch by pairing her with a local chef to mentor her through the process. Leo is now selling her food on All About The Cooks and cook for MAZI fundraisers.
HOW DO WE FUND OURSELVES:
Over the past year we have been developing our own revenue streams to support the enterprise arm within the organisations. We do this through:
Corporate volunteer days: We host team building days every second Tuesday of the month where local businesses come to help pack our meal kits for a set donation per person. We usually can only host maximum 8, with this new space we can host more than double. We are now fully booked until March 2024.
Give-A-Box: is a monthly meal kit delivery with a difference! Seasonal recipe boxes curated by some of Bristol’s best chefs will be delivered to your door and every time you buy a box, another will be donated to a disadvantaged young person suffering food poverty in Bristol. We are re - launching in January alongside partners such as Yeo Valley, Bristol City Football Club and more.
Pop up events: We work with a large network of local restaurants and businesses that host fundraising supper clubs or events.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
We are trying to raise £20,000 to build a community kitchen in South Bristol with a focus on working with marginalised 16 - 25 year olds. We want to create a safe, inclusive and encouraging space that helps improve young people’s mental and physical health whilst also providing our organisation with the chance to generate more income.
Currently, our new space is a complete shell. Therefore, the money raised will go towards the installation of a catering kitchen, equipment to help with more efficient packing of our recipe kits and running of our cooking classes and office desks and stationary.
WHAT WILL THIS DO FOR US:
We will be able to more than double the amount of young people we support per week, going from 80 - 160, facilitate more cooking classes and events for partner charities. It will ensure young people have a space they can call their own, similar to a youth centre but centred around food.
It will also hugely help with expanding our current income streams by giving us more room to host more corporate volunteers, take on more orders of our pay it forward meal kit scheme and host more pop up fundraising events as well as sub let the space to other charities.
By supporting this crowdfunding campaign, you are being part of a pinnacle moment in TMP’s history, helping us scale our activities to give young people the opportunity to reach their full potential.