Tomorrow the East London charity, Stitches in Time will celebrate the end of the pilot run of its exciting new Women’s Food Enterprise project. For one night only, to begin with, Deshi Shad, the name chosen by the project members for their business, will be opening Brick Lane’s first Women-led pop-up Curry House.
Working with residents from the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets, the project has brought together 30 talented local chefs with women professionals from the food and hospitality sector in a series of workshops and events to share skills, tips, and advice, alongside inspiring personal stories. In just 3 months they’ve held 12 workshops, hosted a community lunch for over 50 people, and already have on their books 3 paid catering jobs coming up before the end of the year.
Inspired by the wealth of knowledge and skills in Bengali kitchens and households across the borough, the project is part of the council’s Tackling Poverty Fund, a new initiative supporting innovative ideas to help into employment marginalised people living in a borough with the greatest level of inequality in the country and where 74% of Bangladeshi women are considered economically inactive.
With a waiting list for new candidates, the pilot has been massively popular with local women and already received the backing and support of a host of big names across the food industry, including celebrity chef Asma Khan of Darjeeling Express.
Taking place on Thursday evening at one end of the famous, but exclusively male-run, curry mile, the plan to set up a women-led curry house was on the cards from the project’s start: it would be a symbolic milestone and gesture to the men just down the road, announcing the group’s intent to challenge stereotypes and recognise the strength and skills of Bengali women, while raising awareness of the opportunities out there for aspiring food entrepreneurs.
When the group set out to find a location, after none of the curry houses would even listen to their proposal, they found an unlikely host for their supper club in a church-led cafe taken with the idea of inter-faith collaboration. While East London has grown into one of the major hubs for food and drinks, many businesses in the area are struggling with recruitment under tightening immigration laws and raising costs. In an area that to many encapsulates the capital: a melting pot of cultures and ideas, this Women’s Food Enterprise project has just stirred things up.
