Target reached!
If we raise more money than our target, we could get some portable ovens so we can b...
Loaves of Love
Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Aim
We help women asylum seekers and refugees in Portsmouth rebuild their confidence and self-esteem through the medium of baking bread.
During lockdown, I had a lot of time to reflect on many things, and one thing that kept coming back is how I really wanted to do something for the local community that would actually help make a change in someone’s life. I also noticed that many people started baking, and that shops were running out of flour and yeast.
I am very aware of the challenges faced by women asylum seekers and refugees, ranging from past traumas originating from their home country (living with daily violence in a war zone, domestic abuse, rape…) to the difficulties of living in a country that is making it more and more difficult for them to settle down (lengthy wait to know if their refugee status is accepted while not working, isolation from friends and family, lack of opportunities to develop skills, domestic abuse while continuing to live with their violent partner and waiting for their refugee application to be resolved...)
Breaking bread together (eating together) is a historic way to socialise within communities that goes back centuries. Baking is a reassuring way to say that we are ok and we can feed our family, it is a primal need deeply embedded deep within us.
Because I make my own bread several times a week, the idea to bring people together to make bread naturally started to take place in my mind, and so I have created a charity that does just that: we bring women together through the medium of baking bread to help them feel welcome and valued in the community.
Our team of volunteers includes local professional chefs who started the classes in November with basic doughs (Irish soda bread and pizza dough). We are now holding classes every second and fourth Friday afternoon of the month.
Check out our Facebook page for pictures of what we have been up to so far. We have been supported by the Red Cross in Portsmouth to get the project started.
For this project to be a success, we need to pay for:
- the venue, a large kitchen space with 3 ovens in a local church hall – this costs £66 for a 3 hours class, which is £132 a month
- the ingredients – these are very basic, flour, yeast, butter, oil – approx. £20 to £30 per class depending on what we bake
- and some equipment – we need some table leg risers as the tables are too low to knead dough comfortably, some more mixing bowls, tea towels, aprons, scales and bread pans. Storage containers, ideally on wheels, would help to pack everything away neatly and safely.
Here is the set up for our first class. The table legs risers worked really well as they allowed us to knead dough without breaking our backs.
Some of the equipment and basic ingredients we purchased for that first class:
Our volunteer chefs teaching our very first class:
1) Chef Sophie Meecham checking the pizza dough is ready
2) Chef Sandra Visser checking the Irish soda bread is sufficiently cooked
Sophie and Sandra put together a list of recipes to be done in our classes and so far we have done: scones, multi-seeds bread rolls, cinnamon buns, iced buns, cheese and garlic tear and share bread, hot cross buns
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We still have those to do: pinwheel pizzas, quick flatbreads, festive chocolate & hazelnut star bread, corn bread, saffron buns, milk bread rolls, olive breadsticks, calzones
Thank you for any help and support you can give us. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me for a chat.
Follow us on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoavesofLoveGB
and on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loavesoflovegb/
This project successfully funded on 16th January 2022