Over the past months, our team on Lesvos have been working hard to establish a new training center called Ergon. This space, located outside of RIC Lesvos, will be home to The Movement Academy, a program enabling vocational training for interested residents.
A key program of The Movement Academy will be a cooking school, made possible by Dutch Restauranter Michiel Boon. The cooking school will provide residents with an opportunity to train their culinary skills and create future prospects for a job in the hospitality industry.
Together with Paul Rodenberg of the Culinary Vocations School in Groningen, Michiel is working hard to get everything in place for the cooking school, from programming to the setting up of a fully equipped kitchen in Ergon including fridges, working tables, ovens and all necessary cooking equipment. All made possible through crowdfunding efforts.
The pair have plans to travel to Lesvos to help get the cooking school up and running, so long as COVID-19 measurements permit.
“We want to train residents to prepare basic dishes such as pizza, sushi, bread, pasta and meat. When completing the modules, the participants receive a certificate, which they can use to their advantage later on,” explains Michiel.
As well as training and certifications, the purpose of the cooking school is to help the residents of RIC Lesvos better connect with one another and the local community, over the commonality that is food.
We are so grateful to the support and drive of Michiel and Paul and we are very much looking forward to the realisation of the cooking school in the Ergon space.
You can read Michiel’s interview with local Dutch newspaper ‘Het Kontakt’ about the project here. To support the cooking school fundraiser, check out our Kentaa platform on this link.
