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Sept. 7, 2007
Giving women new security
Community kitchen helps the mentally and fiscally challenged.
WENDY ELLIMAN ISRAEL PRESS SERVICE
Since October 2006, eight women from disadvantaged backgrounds
have spent their mornings preparing tasty nutritious meals for 210
mentally challenged adults at the Israel-Elwyn Rehabilitation Centre
in Jerusalem, and many of their afternoons and evenings developing
their own catering businesses in Israel's competitive culinary market.
"The Community Kitchen at Elwyn is the 'graduate stage' of
our Women Cook Up a Business program," said Ella Ben Yossef,
head of social services projects for the Jerusalem Foundation, which
provided much of the funding for the community kitchen and for the
18-month training courses that preceded it. "It is a highly
original and effective model that will be widely replicable once
we have overcome the problems of combining an economic undertaking
with the facts on the ground."
Cook Up a Business, which aims to help mature women enter the job
market, earn a steady income and raise their status at home, was
launched two years ago in Jerusalem's socially and economically
depressed Kiryat Yovel neighborhood by the Kol Ha'Isha (Woman's
Voice) and Achoti (My Sister) women's organizations.
"It's a project that adapts the micro-business model to women
who excel in home cooking, and so turns a low-image skill into a
prestigious and marketable occupation," said Orna Hadar, director
of the Kol Ha'Isha Jerusalem Women's Centre.
The project began with a course that taught business practices along
with food skills – bookkeeping, pricing, marketing, economic
planning, defining a business and its market, self-empowerment and
self-presentation. As the course ended, however, it became clear,
said Hadar, that an intermediate stage was needed between the classroom
and the business world.
"We came up with the idea of a community kitchen that would
function as a safe, supportive and enabling business incubator,
while providing working conditions as close as possible to the business
reality," she said.
An agreement was made with the Elwyn Rehabilitation Centre in south
Jerusalem to modernize, reequip and work from their kitchen, preparing
them 210 meals, five mornings a week. The kitchen thus operates
as a co-operative business enterprise, while the women develop skills
and gain real-life experience toward entering the business world
on their own.
In the afternoons, the kitchen is open to all course graduates and
provides a place where they can cook for their own businesses –
a supportive framework that has both health ministry and kashrut
certification. Events catered are both large and small, formal and
informal. One recent party was for industrialist and Jerusalem city
councillor Nir Barkat. With the High Holy Days ahead, the women
are expecting a rush of clients.
"When I heard about the course, my life was at rock-bottom,"
said Sivan, who, at 53, is one of the oldest participants. "My
husband was unemployed and I'd just got through treatment for breast
cancer. I wanted to get back to work and to being me, but I'd lost
my self-confidence and couldn't do either. The course was amazing,
both for what it taught me and for making us part of a community
of supportive women. When it ended, though, I didn't know what to
do. I leapt at the chance of working in a community kitchen."
Sivan, like the other seven women who've run the kitchen since it
opened last fall, works there two days a week. Between them, they
have developed efficient and quality menus, according to their varied
culinary specialties. Their salaries include social benefits and
provide a dependable income while they develop their own businesses.
"The responsibility given to women has steadily increased,"
said Hadar. "Everyone takes a turn as 'director of the month,'
planning meals, ensuring that provisions are ordered and arrive
on time, as well as dealing with suppliers, bookkeeping and finances."
The fact that everything has gone so smoothly is in itself a major
achievement, said the project's business manager, Batya Cnaani.
"It wasn't easy for eight inexperienced women to organize themselves
to cook 210 palatable meals daily, serve them in three shifts, while
learning about working with one another and the mashgiah
(kashrut supervisor)."
Learning to work with the members of the Elwyn day-care community
has been an added challenge. "You need strength and caring
to work with mentally challenged people," observed Yemima,
another community kitchen participant. "Not all of them would
stand in line for the food at the beginning. Many can't balance
their trays, quite a few are on special diets and, if we run even
a bit late, they don't understand and get rowdy. But we've come
to know each other and many of them come to tell us that they love
our food."
In April, two Elwyn women joined the catering team to set tables
and help with cooking – giving the kitchen, in Hadar's words,
"added social value."
Although Rosh Hashanah marks only the first year of the community
kitchen, all those involved see nothing but expansion ahead. "This
year, we hope to provide lunches to other educational frameworks
in the areas which have a long study day," said Ben Yossef.
At the same time, the women's independent businesses are also taking
off. "Working in the kitchen and starting my own business has
changed my life," said Rimon, who makes special dessert liqueurs
(pomegranates, cherry with almond and strawberry) and is developing
a gift package to be marketed before Rosh Hashanah. "It's like
a complete cleansing of the spirit, from the bottom up. I'm full
of new energy and love of life. I was in a terrible state when I
started. Things were really hard at home. We had legal and money
problems, my daughter was failing in school and I was working as
a cleaner to put food on the table. I knew the project was for me
the moment I heard about it. I was one of the very first to register
my own business – and the only cleaning I do now is in my own
house!"
"I'm at the point where I know it's up to me to go forward
alone," added Sivan, "but I can do it knowing there are
people who'll help and who care about me. I love what I've learned.
I live for it – for the color, the opportunity to meet people,
the chance to open my heart and mind and to look at a table and
see people enjoying a meal I've prepared."
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