FRIDAY 1st NOV TO MON 2nd DEC
20% OFF INDIVIDUAL KITCHEN KNIVES*
3% OF SALES GO TO THE MAZI PROJECT
* The TOG X OUTLAW'S Sakana filleting knife is excluded from this offer.
October 2024.
This Black Friday we are running a 'Twin Campaign', giving our customers access to our knives at a reduced price whilst also raising funds for food charity The Mazi Project.
TOG founder Bert met with Mazi founder Melanie Vaxevanakis at Mazi's opening party for their new community kitchen in Bristol. Melanie explained Mazi's new plans and what your donations will help Mazi achieve.
Bert:
For those who are not familiar, would you mind briefly telling us why you set up The Mazi Project?
Melanie:
I grew up in Athens, a place where food is central to our identity and culture. It has been the source of a lot of love, memories and connections in my life.
In Greek we have a word for this which summarises all these things and this is MAZI. It means ‘together’ and it really captures that spirit of being with friends and family, eating beautiful food, whilst talking and laughing. Those things I grew up with in Greece.
Sadly not everyone is able to experience MAZI as I was. Many young people in this country grow up without family or friends, and without the knowledge of and access to food that are so integral to mental and physical health. This is why I started The MAZI Project, an organization that nourishes marginalized young people’s potential.
At MAZI, we support vulnerable young people aged between 16 - 25 including young asylum seekers, youth recovering from homelessness and fleeing domestic violence. Many of the young people we work with have struggled with neglect, abuse, financial insecurity and the feeling of isolation and loneliness. They have consistently fought against a negative narrative and predominantly come from areas of divestment and system neglect - struggling against a broken welfare system. At a life defining age, I felt it crucial that we are there to support this community, make them feel loved and remind them they are extraordinary because they truly are and inspire me with their strength every day!
What are The Mazi Projects’ main activities and why did you choose these?
At TMP, we use food as a tool for social mobility, advocacy and a cure to the public health crisis. We aim to improve young people's access to healthy food, better food education and employment opportunities in the hospitality industry and third sector. We do this through some of the following services:
1. Our aMAZIng meal kit service:
This is our immediate intervention service to those facing food poverty in the city. Similar to Mindful Chef, we text our young people with a selection of 20 super seasonal recipes. They choose up to three and our wonderful volunteers will pre weigh and then deliver our meal kits straight to our young members' doors.
This is all about ensuring we provide vulnerable people choice in how to nourish themselves and ensure they feel autonomy over their own lives, something they often lack due to their economic situation. Additionally, we are funded and want to continue to be funded to buy our ingredients because we believe everyone should have equal access to high quality ingredients. We also work with local and small scale producers to buy the majority of what we can to not only ensure our members are well nourished but also help build a more localised and resilient food system.
2. Our aMAZIng education programmes:
With our brand new community kitchen, opened this September, we are super excited to be launching our own education programmes this November that aim to build young people's confidence in the kitchen, teach them new and advanced skills to ensure they eat healthier. We are also going to be supporting them by providing ASDAN qualifications for each session and taking them to partner restaurants and producers to connect them to where food comes from and give them access to spaces they may find inaccessible.
3. Our employment programmes:
We are building towards signposting young people towards employment within the hospitality industry and also starting their own food business. Most excitingly, we are working on creating a food justice programme that will help teach them to become activists and leaders for MAZI and food equality, helping change policy and lobby government.
Within all these programmes and services, we want to provide our young members choice in how they use our services and how we operate. This has also been supported by having previous MAZI users on our board as well as someone with lived experience ensuring we are operating in an effective way for those we support.
How did Bristol-based actress and Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams become involved?
Maisie got involved after attending one of MAZI Project's fundraisers in 2021. As a young woman, Maisie faced hardship and understood the impact of not being able to nourish yourself properly. Maisie has helped design a MAZI t-shirt, advocate for us in various press opportunities and raise awareness about the organisation.
Last year when TOG worked with the Mazi Project, you were in a shared space with a restaurant in South Bristol. Tell us what has changed since then?
A lot has changed with MAZI since then. We have opened our very own community kitchen. Taking over a stripped warehouse, over the past 9 months we have worked extremely hard to create a welcoming and inclusive space for our community and wider. With the support of our wonderful volunteers and businesses, the dream has come true. The kitchen will be a space that will provide a warm and encouraging hub that will use food to bring people together and create change from the bottom up. We want MAZI Kitchen to be at the intersection of society and bring the power of sharing food to those who may otherwise not have it.
We have partnered with some amazing businesses and organisations such as Yeo Valley, The WAVE, Ian Williams, The Food Foundation and many more. This has been a huge help in raising MAZI's profile.
We have now got Lily, our Director of Services on board full time, bringing us to 2 people and a brilliant board of trustees that bring their own diverse experience into the organisation. We have also won the South West Start Up for Good awards, been shortlisted for the UK's Start Up for Good Award and most recently and very excitingly, we have been shortlisted in the top 3 for BBC Food and Farming Morning Live's Community Champion award!
People buying TOG kitchen knives this November will be helping raise money for your next ventures and I know you have some new ones up your sleeve - can you tell us about your plans for the future?
We have so many! First, we want to take this year to build a strong foundation and develop our processes for our services. We hope to expand the team and build a brilliant operation that can expand to support over 160 young people each week with our meal kits by the end of next year.
We want to expand our education programmes to other organisations and service providers. We are especially excited about the prospect of working with Alternative Learning Providers, to expand our education services within schools that work with children who need extra support.
Although we’ve achieved so much in Bristol, and are really proud of what we and our members have accomplished. But it’s not enough. There is a national crisis.
We want to go national with our voice - joining leaders like the Food Foundation to ensure that young people have the best access to healthy food and therefore to a future in which they can thrive! Over the next two years, we will be building our advocacy arm, supporting our members to become activists before we create a blueprint for MAZI Projects to role out in other cities across the UK.
I believe that every young person deserves to feel love through food. I believe that every young person has the right to be part of a community that supports and cares for them, I believe that every young person has the right to food that nourishes and brings them good health. And with the wonderful support of TOG Knives and you, you can help us to make sure young people have these things.
Thank you thank you!
Thank YOU Melanie!