Aina Omo-Bare welcomes everyone at Idia’s Kitchen. Three times a week Aina cooks for up to 40 people at St Monica’s RC Church in Hoxton with the support of local businesses and Catholic charity Caritas Westminster in the UK. The food, which is free to anyone who needs it, is helping to reduce food waste and bring people together into a supportive community where lives can be changed.
Aina is well known in the Catholic community of St Monica’s and the wider area. The idea for Idia’s Kitchen, which is named after Aina’s late daughter, came to Aina after she saw food wasted at the college kitchen where she worked as a chef until December last year.
Aina began using food that would have been binned and cooked and distributed it at St Monica’s parish hall. The project quickly grew and came to the attention of Caritas Westminster, who helped Aina find new sources of food and funding. This included linking her with Hackney Council’s food distribution scheme and the Gubay Foundation, who provided a grant of £1000.