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Bosco gives MSPs a healthy talking to
A PEEBLES-BASED chef who promotes healthy eating UK-wide took his message to the Scottish Parliament this week.
Social enterprise company director Bosco Santimano talked to around 70 MSPs plus other social enterprise and private company representatives in Edinburgh on Tuesday night.
The 41-year-old chef from Goa, India, worked for the civil service, as an NHS porter and in the voluntary sector before being made redundant.
It was then, eight years ago, he started his business, Aromatic Cuisine, going into people’s homes to prepare Goan meals he had learned from his grandmother.
He explained: “I realised I was excluding about 80 per cent of the population and thought ‘this is not me, I need to work with people, I need to come up with something else’.”
He came across a government report which said Scotland’s obesity levels were second only to the USA.
“I was reading about it and you see it around you – that was the trigger.”
His social enterprise, You Can Cook, started three years ago, employs cooks and stages workshops, demonstrations and classes throughout Britain.
It is currently working for Scottish Borders Housing Association and will be running workshops for people on low incomes for NHS Borders later in the year.
Mr Santimano explained: “We employ people from the community who are passionate about cooking, who cook from scratch and are aware of healthy cooking.
“We explain ‘we are here to bring our skills and experience, and we are here to learn from you’. That way we find people are more receptive to us because we are engaging both ways.”
The organisation has six community cooks who work part-time and varying numbers of volunteers.
“We create awareness, we don’t say ‘this is what you have to do’. Instead we are saying ‘these are the options, it’s your life’. It scares people into action. It’s easy to blame someone else but we provide the information to show you can’t blame the NHS or the politicians or whoever – you take responsibility for your own life.
“Good food doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive – Scotland has one of the best larders in the world and we just show people how to benefit from that.
“By making the classes fun and interactive people learn together and it breaks down barriers. After a few classes you begin to notice a change in the students as they grow in confidence. One young man who’d been in trouble with the law even went home and baked the whole class a cake to say thank you.”
The invitation to the Scottish Parliament to celebrate social enterprises and food came from MSP Christine Grahame after she attended one of Mr Santimano’s workshops.
She said: “Bosco is a real inspiration. His classes reach out to sections of the community who are sometimes forgotten about; those with learning difficulties, the long-term unemployed and the elderly. Bosco’s talent is not just cooking but knowing how to empower people.”
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Weather for Galashiels
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: East
