How do making dumplings help people learn English?

“How do making dumplings help people learn English?” Here’s a link to a great project in Manchester, Heart and Parcel. I wanted to RE-BLOG this practical piece about the methodology of teaching ESOL through cooking, and to share the website in general with its fantastic dumpling recipes as well as interesting articles, particularly this one I felt, on Policy, Pierogi and the Perceptions of Women.

“The dumplings and wrapped foods that we make during our sessions are a vehicle. We are not making dumplings as a means to an end, nor do we expect that all women can make, or immensely enjoy, making dumplings. We are making dumplings as a distraction; to create the process by which our participants can explore their minds, their talent, their potential, either through the task at hand (maybe we will get fantastic dumpling makers!) or through conversations had between those women, through information and knowledge being shared and transferred from one woman to another, from one community to another.”

Helping with Food in Refugee Camps in Calais

Help if you can via this YouCaring crowdfunder and share this post.

These videos offer an inspiring introduction to the solidarity work around food in “the Jungle” camp in Calais, and those cooking, distributing and making it possible there for people to do this themselves as well. The refugees are from many places in the world, and it’s clear that most are fleeing terrible violence and have had quite a rough journey to get to where they now are.

Here’s a video showing how volunteers are working with the diversity and specificity of the people in the camp; you can feel the urgency:

 

This one shows the development of Kitchen in Calais:

 

This one what your group might want to contribute in terms of food donations:

——————

Lots of people seem to wind up on my blog, say the WordPress stats, looking for information about what Syrian refugees eat.  I have no personal knowledge about this, though I did a while back reblog some information that is now probably pretty obsolete pertaining to refugees in Lebanon.  That’s why you might end up here on my site.

I assume that people who ask these questions of internet search engines (maybe Siri can somehow learn as well) inquire from a place of compassion and concern, and perhaps the wish to contribute, donate, or volunteer.  Hence this post.

Some links: