Chidi has always loved cooking. As a teenager, she spent hours cooking for her family and watching cooking shows on TV with her aunts. She credits discovering this early passion with keeping her out of trouble while her younger sister had a baby and didn’t complete school. Chidi wants to share her love for cooking with girls in her city in the hope that they would benefit from it as she did.
She decided to start a local cooking club. She was able to rent the church hall kitchen for the sessions and printed flyers which she left in local schools and churches. On the day of the first session, Chidi went to the church hall kitchen, laden with food bags and excited to teach the girls to make burgers, but no one came. She was crushed. She had worked so hard to get everything together and had told everyone she knew about it.
Often we jump from seeing a problem to developing a solution. We see children without a place to study and we know a place where they could study and create a study space. Or we love music and want to share that with others so set up a choir for young people.
Take a moment to think about what we know about this situation.
- What do we know about Chidi?
- What do we know about her local area?
- What do we know about the challenges and aspirations of girls in this area?
- What do we know about the opportunities available to them?
- What do we know about how she publicised the session?