Innovation: Cooks without Homes
Czech Republic
AAI Domains:
Employment (employment rate)
Independent, healthy and secure living (financial security, independent living, physical safety, improved mental well-being)
Participation in society (social connectedness)
It is a brutal reality that the life expectancy for people who experience long-term homelessness is usually decades shorter than the prevailing national average. While men are generally more likely to be homeless, there are many homeless women who want to participate in society but can be ‘invisible’ in the public mind. Homeless women can face barriers and are often less likely to have their needs met by existing services but in Prague, Czech Republic the voluntary organisation Jako doma is campaigning for better provision for this group and has developed a socially innovative project to enable homeless women to help themselves.
Jako doma was established in 2012 and was the first non-governmental voluntary sector organisation focusing on gender-specific homelessness. In the spring of 2013, they started the Cooks without Homes project for homeless women with funding from small grants and public donations to highlight the disadvantaged position that homeless women face and the potential abilities and skills that they have to offer to society.
Cooks without Homes is an inclusive and cooperative project that works in partnership with homeless women by activating their cooking abilities and thus to challenge social attitudes to homeless people in general and women in particular. The homeless women are recruited from dorms and shelters across Prague and undergo a short cookery course before embarking on running a vegan food stall that operates at farmer’s markets, public and cultural events across Prague and the parts of the wider Czech Republic.
When the project started they were operating four sessions per month with a small number of women participating and receiving a modest income for their labour. Over time the project has grown and now operates 15 times per month during the winter months and every day apart from Sundays during the rest of the year. Jako doma have been able to develop better mobile cooking facilities and have received long-term support from a local organic food company that provides them with surplus fruit and vegetables. The project has engaged with more than 50 homeless women since it began and typically between 12 and 20 women are actively participating at any one time.
Cooks without Homes helps homeless women to break the cycle of homelessness and lack of provision for their needs by utilising their cooking skills and so enables them to earn money. This plays an important part in tackling the low self-esteem that homeless women experience and enhances their physical and mental well-being. The project has developed a catering service for events and organisations that has been used by the American and French embassies as a stepping stone to developing a high street kitchen and bistro that can showcase the cooking skills of homeless women and provide greater and more secure economic opportunities.
In relation to the active ageing index, Cooks without Homes can increase the employment prospects for older women who are homeless but it is far more important in providing some financial security for homeless women who are among the most socially excluded groups in society. This financial security can be a stepping stone to physical safety and for independent living for homeless women by integrating them back into the market economy and mainstream society. There is also ample scope for improvements in mental well-being as a result of participating in the project that is based on re-building social connectedness for homeless women.