Share Kai – Creating Spaces Where All Belong
The concept at the heart of Share Kai is creating spaces where people can come together and connect meaningfully over food, ultimately bringing about a society where everyone belongs. Based in Ōtautahi Christchurch, this brainchild of Holly Griffin, Project Manager – InCommon and Claire Newman, General Manager – Seed the Change is a response to the very human need for connection and belonging.
The Share Kai kaupapa is supported through Weave, formerly known as the Working Together More Fund. Weave is a collaboration of eight Family Foundations which includes the J R McKenzie Trust, Wayne Francis Charitable Trust, Todd Foundation, The Tindall Foundation, Hugh Green Foundation, DV Bryant Trust, Len Reynolds Trust, and Clare Foundation. Weave partners work collectively to support community projects that bring groups together to make positive change, taking a mana-enhancing, relational approach to providing funding, resources, and workshops to help Aotearoa New Zealand’s collaborations to thrive.
Share Kai has the principle of partnership at its core, and this is reflected in its different offerings. Run in collaboration with neighbourhood groups, Share Kai and Kōrero are pop-up community food events that encourage connection and celebrate the diversity of cultures that call Aotearoa New Zealand home. The events feature the Share Kai Cooks Collective, passionate cooks from refugee and migrant background communities who make traditional and beloved food, not often seen in hospitality spaces around the motu. Hosted by workplaces, organisations, and schools, Share Kai, Share Culture events feature the Share Kai Cooks Collective who cater a meal and share about their culture. A safe space is created where sharing, conversation, and two-way learning is encouraged over kai. Share a Table events are run in partnership with hospitality and other spaces and provide an opportunity for diners to BYO their meal and connect with someone new at the dining table. A Share a Table toolkit is in development, which will offer tips and tools designed to help workplaces, schools, and communities looking to create more inclusive spaces and host their own Share a Table events.
The kaupapa has seen some significant impacts already.
“What I love about Share Kai is the layers of impact we are making – we're seeing positive outcomes for the women in our Cooks Collective, who come from refugee or migrant backgrounds, financially but also in terms of their confidence connecting with each other, with diners at our events, and with our partners. Some members have reported that through their involvement in Share Kai they're motivated to return to studying English because they want to be able to engage more at Share Kai events.
At all our events we hear stories from diners about how valuable they find them in terms of either raising the visibility of their culture and cuisines or from people who have never experienced the culture or cuisine on offer and are so excited about having an opportunity to learn more and have a conversation with others. The overwhelming majority of people report leaving our events feeling more connected and having their spark for learning more about others ignited – and appreciation for an environment that provides a gentle nudge for these connections rather than a facilitated session,” says Holly.
Share Kai has not been without its challenges, but the team embraced a ‘fail fast, learn, and adapt’ mentality early on.
“By piloting our ideas we learn what works, and how we need to adapt and improve to ensure everyone gets what they need out of the programme (i.e., our Cooks Collective, diners and stakeholders). We've also tried not to grow too fast, for instance only having three groups in our Cooks Collective while we can figure things out so that we don't have too much of a coordination burden but have enough to provide a substantial offering.
We are really lucky to have been able to bring on an Events Coordinator just over a month ago, which has really helped free us up to do more and will allow us to keep developing, and strategising, while also delivering in 2024. We're really excited about a partnership in the new year that will provide us with a home base that has a commercial kitchen, dining space and workspaces.
Making good partnerships has been crucial along the way to support us with different elements of the work, different expertise and resources – we couldn't have done it without this sharing of the load, and it has also made is so much fun, we really feel like we're part of a movement,” says Holly.
So far, the team has planned, organised, and held 39 Share Kai events since launching in February this year, reaching more than 2,500 people. Many more goals are planned for the future.
“We plan to embed our programme more deeply in Ōtautahi, offer and deliver more; focus on making sure the programme is making the impact we intend (and making sure we're measuring this!); move into a home base at the new Multicultural Centre in Ōtautahi; increase the diversity of groups within our Cooks Collective and provide more opportunities for our members to flourish; deepen our work within in the social cohesion sector in Aotearoa; and begin scaling outside of Ōtautahi,” says Holly.
With such evident aroha, determination, and desire to encourage and facilitate connection and belonging, it’s not difficult to imagine all of this and much, much more being achieved by the Share Kai team.