Govanhill Food Stories Community Market

Food Stories & Community Learning

It started out as a cloudy Saturday morning, but by the time we arrived at Govanhill Food Stories Community Market last weekend, the clouds had cleared and crowds had gathered to enjoy the sun. The theme of the market was ‘Food Stories’, celebrating Govanhill’s multicultural community through stories around food and connection. There were a range of workshops and talks from local community organisations including Greater Govanhill Magazine, Glasgow Zine Library and Unity Sisters.

We were there to represent some of our projects that work around food and community. Food Buddies is a project that developed peer support for people with dementia and for carers, with a focus on food and keeping well.

We had a lot of interest around our work with Queer Families, a peer support project for LGBTQ+ families that is based at Rumpus Room in Govanhill and runs fun craft and activity sessions each month.

Our Moments of Freedom resources were very popular, with lots of people picking up a resource that the women made with tips on writing poetry, as well as sharing some poems of their own.

We were lucky to be stationed next to Soul Food Sisters, a social enterprise who make and share amazing food- they were kind enough to let us try some delicious Algerian flatbread and lemon cake, and it was great to hear about the range of work they do empowering migrant women and sharing food from across different cultures.

Throughout the day we asked people to contribute to our interactive Community Map- asking people to share what they thought was growing well in their community, what they’d like to see more of, and the ways that food could be a part of connecting people. We heard some really interesting suggestions and ideas, including a baby weaning café, more investment in local community gardens, particularly for people without access to gardens of their own, intergenerational gardening projects and more community spaces to cook and eat together.

We had a great day at the market- it was brilliant to see so many exciting community initiatives come together and have conversations around food & community. We’re looking forward to developing more work in these areas- if you have any ideas or there’s something you’d like to see, get in touch!