Jamie Oliver teaches Tower Hamlets to cook

Some lucky Tower Hamlets parents are now able to take advantage of a training programme run by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

Tower Hamlets Council has begun an official partnership with Mr Oliver’s Ministry of Food. The scheme involves teaching the important skills needed to create cheap and healthy meals to a group of local parents, who can then go on to share their knowledge with other families.

The council have already collaborated with Mr Oliver to improve the diet of young residents using the Kitchen Garden project. This programme involves teaching children basic cookery and facts about where the ingredients come from. This initiative has been taking place at St Paul’s Whitechapel Primary School for the last two years.

Tower Hamlets is already ranked as the best borough in the Healthy Schools league. Over 95 per cent of its schools have the coveted Healthy Schools award, compared to 45 per cent in Islington, which holds second place.

Mr Oliver said: “This is going to be fantastic, this is a brilliant course for the parents and I think you are going to love it.

“This is about local people teaching local people how to cook, how to budget, how to cook nutritious, healthy, affordable food and it’s all really parent-focused. So we are looking after the kids with the Kitchen Garden project and now we are looking after the parents.”

The project is being provided as part of the Healthy Families programme run by the Parental Engagement Team. A pilot group of 14 parents began their training on March 16th. They will eventually go on to teach their own groups at venues across Tower Hamlets.

The borough’s mayor Lutfur Rahman said the scheme was part of a wider commitment to nutritional health. He explained: “In September we took the bold step of launching free school meals for every primary school pupil in the borough, precisely so we can guarantee children are getting at least one hot, nutritious meal every day.”

He added that working with such a high-profile chef is “something the whole borough can be proud of”.

Published 19th March, 2015

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