Buxton Food and Drink Festival 2012
3 May 2012
Buxton Food and Drink Festival under the Dome
People enjoying Congolese food
Brightly coloured Congolese fabrics
Coming Together
Bringing the Voice of Congolese Women's community group to Buxton was a lovely way to celebrate Easter together as most of the group who came to the Buxton District Food and Drink Festival Fair are Christian.
The aim of our work is to improve people's lives, including our young people, by increasing their social integration whatever the cost, so as to reduce the isolation faced by so many people living across the city. The group now comprises people from African, the West Indies and other ethnic communities across Derby, too - Iraqi, Somalian, Ethiopian, Togolese, Nigeria, Ghanaian, to name a few, and white British. We celebrate the chance to do this work believing it makes a difference to people's lives.
The Buxton Fair took the Community Relations Team two weeks of preparation to get everything ready to make this event successful including to attract the community to travel for a long distance from Pear Tree Library in Normanton to our Buxton Campus. We are very grateful to the head of Marketing, Peter Allen who provided funding for us to support this two-day national in Buxton.
It was good to see how the community responded so positively - we needed to book a bigger coach, with more seats, rather than the mini bus we had planned. We are always taken aback by their response: the community always values everything we do together, and makes a huge contribution to make things happen.
The response we received from all the visitors and some of the stall holders to the fair was enthusiastic. We found ourselves serving food all the time we were there. People wanted to pay but we simply asked for a donation. There were long queues at times, and people were full of interest in the food we had prepared. Some came back several times, complementing us on how delicious it was. The plantain, salt, cat (they call this sardines) red fish, goat meat and hard chicken were all highly commended on the first day. On the second day we offered smoked chicken, plantain, beignet, rice and couscous, with equal enthusiasm from those who came to our stand.
Find out more about purchasing the food and fabrics and cooking traditional African food.
For more information about this Community News story, contact Betty Phoba, Chair of the Voice of Congolese Women, on 07428 679333.
