The city’s school children cooked up a storm last month when they put on their chef’s hats and aprons and joined the healthy school meals campaign.  Children from five inner city schools used some newly found culinary skills to cook healthy meals with their parents at an event at Djanogoly City Academy.

This exciting project was an initiative by the Partnership’s Council Children’s Forum which works with 12 local Primary Schools to involve local children in decision making.  Last year the forum discussed child poverty and the young members wanted to help improve school dinners after recognising the connection between poverty, poor diet and the importance of school meals.

The first cooking and tasting session took place on Thursday 15^th June where children and parents cooked a range of healthy food from Vegetable Chilli to Fruit Fool.  The group then sampled each others healthy dishes at a communal meal. 

The event was organised by the Children’s Forum with the School Catering Service, Ten Schools United, Education Action Zone and the Primary Care Trust with Asda in Hyson Green contributing some of the ingredients. 

Recipe cards were provided with ingredients, equipment requirements and cooking instructions and the children took these away so they could cook the meals at home.  This first session was a huge success and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone who took part.  The Forum is now looking at organising more events like this in the future.