Tower Hamlets Healthy Holidays Recipe Videos

In February 2021, Oitij-jo Collective through its Tati initiative was contracted by London Borough of Tower Hamlet’s (LBTH), Tackling Food Poverty Team to work with them to deliver on their Healthy Holiday programme for the coming Easter. 

LBTH received funding from the DfE’s Holiday Activities and Food (#HAF2021) programme, to deliver activities and food aimed at children eligible for Free School Meals over school holidays. For Easter, it was considered to be too soon to consider in-person provision, and as such the programme decided on a remote model. Boxes of ingredients were to be delivered, tailored to recipes developed by a partner Tati, in consultation with local children, alongside the recipes and videos of the making of each recipe.

The criteria for the recipes to be developed were:

1)    There should be a recipe for each day of the week, for one week
2)    The recipes should be developed in consultation with LBTH children
3)    They should use ingredients which total no more than £12 per box (when ordered in bulk)
4)    They use only ambient produce 
5)    They must be vegetarian or vegan

Tati’s Work

TATI Members hit the ground running when the first meeting was organised on Sunday 21st February to discuss the project and possible food that children may want to eat. The meeting involved  six TATI Members and their children, total of twenty. 

The age range of the children reflected the whole school age range, Reception to Year 13+ (6 – 19 years) and girls and boys. There was certain amount of excitement amongst the TATI Members and their children, that the children were being involved in their mother’s work. 

 The children attended from six local Primary schools and four Secondary schools.  

Following on from the first discussion session, Tati got busy, working with LBTH’s Tackling Poverty Team to ensure they were within the projected cost per box whilst being healthy. Hence, we also engaged with the Public Health Programme Officer for Healthy Environments and Food programme Lead at Women’s Environment Network (WEN) to ensure the recipes developed were balanced and healthy. The final recipes produced, also received feedback from the children and their wider circle of friends. 

Once the recipes had been confirmed, three TATI Members had the task of testing them to make sure the recipes developed actually worked when cooked taste wise. Following this step, recipes were written up ready for publication Tower Hamlets Healthy Holidays booklet along with photos taken by TATI Members. 

RECIPE 1: BAKED POTATO

RECIPE 2: PITTA POCKET PIZZA

RECIPE 3: TORTILLA WRAPS WITH MIXED VEGETABLES

RECIPE 4: STIR FRY VEGETABLE RICE

RECIPE 5: COURGETTE RAVIOLLI WITH SWEET POTATO CHIPS

Outcome / Impact

The initiative’s work contributed to  DfE’s national #HAF2021 programme. The following was achieved:

1)    5,350 boxes distributed to children who are eligible for Free School Meals. |
2)    Met Tower Hamlet’s target to:  Provide healthy food and enriching activities for low income children, for free to encourage the children and their families to: 
-       Eat more healthily over the school holidays
-       Be more active during school holidays
-       Take part in engaging and enriching activities 
-       Be safe and not be socially isolated
-       To have greater knowledge of health nutrition 
-       To be more engaged with school and other services 
3)    Tati engaged with multiple stakeholders including school children to develop from scratch five healthy and delicious recipes to budget alongside videos. 

It has been a challenging but fun activity. Why not try one of the recipes and send us photos and videos of what you have made?  

Click on the image below to get access to the PDF with more information by Tower Hamlets about their Healthy Holidays campaign.