Creating connections with shared cuisine

The Carol White Family Centre is an intergenerational centre that supports refugee families. Sharing cuisine from home celebrates life and enables families to create a local curriculum.

Educators Robyn Gerrity and Liana Hardjabuntara share how they create a sense of belonging through shared experiences, everyday opportunities and communal food preparation.

Transcript

Robyn Gerrity

The special nature of the centre means that you are part of the refugee community. When you see a new family arriving, ask yourself, “Oh, who is this child?” You don’t make assumptions about the child – just enjoy that moment of someone inside your centre that you don’t know at all, and that’s a very exciting prospect. And we know through other work that we’ve done that this child carries his ancestors with him. So we don’t know who he is and who he’s bringing.

Often our stories can be very painful, and we’re not wanting to revisit those things. We’re wanting to work with the children in the here and the now. We’re wanting to be part of their interests about being part of connecting with them and their families in the here and the now. What’s happening for them in New Zealand? – well, you know, why do we love rainbows so much? What can we find that’s about rainbows? And what can we provide here? – so that they feel happy and exuberant when they come to the centre and they just enjoy themselves and get busy with their play and their work.

Liana Hardjabuntara

We really believe that it’s really important for them to develop this trust in us. The child that, through her play, then she finds a dolly that’s really interesting for her. So she start with bathing the doll and then clothe them and wrap them safely. And then suddenly mummy came in and have to hurry home. So they want to take this baby home, but mummy said, “No, no, no. Leave it with the teacher,” or something like that. And we would assure her that, “Well, your baby will be safe with us, and if you come back here tomorrow and play with your baby again.” That’s what we said to the child. And we do find a safe place for this baby, and often our office become the safe place for baby or just a small rock or something like that.

Robyn Gerrity

The cooking in our centre, Cuisine from the Home, from the first time that it took place, we had babies up at the tables watching and wanting and rolling with their little rolling pins and wanting to work the pasta machine. We could see that, oh these children, it’s from the home. They have all these skills, these amazing chopping skills of chopping up leeks and garlic, coriander and spices and with sharp knives – and they were expert, looking like MasterChef actually – so actually sharing and showing us confidently the skills that they have.

Liana Hardjabuntara

We just do what we always do every day. We don’t make it as a special thing or we have to do ‘belonging’ today or this week or this month, whatever. It’s just already happening.

Robyn Gerrity

I have been thinking about the belonging. It’s a process and it’s a living thing. I can see that also this process is not about the qualified teachers in the centre. We have seen this opportunity, and refugee families have stepped up and taken it.

It takes time … You have to, you have to give time. Nothing happens in a hurry.

Acknowledgements We acknowledge the Carol White Family Centre and educators Robyn Gerrity and Liana Hardjabuntara.

Supported by the Marsden Fund Council from government funding, managed by Royal Society Te Apārangi.