Black Friday shoppers are urged to give something back on Giving Tuesday on December 1, a drive to donate to charity supported by an award-winning Clapham restaurateur.
Owner and head chef of May the Fifteenth, Kevin McFadden, has created a special dish to support his chosen charity Farm Africa to encourage donations to the work they do supporting famers in Africa.
Kevin, 38, created the African meatballs with dumplings dish, using ingredients that will be grown in urban vegetable gardens in school and youth clubs in Nairobi with the help of the charity.
The winner of the 2012 Time Out winner of best new local restaurant award, was happy to be helping the ‘brilliant’ campaign, his recipe can be downloaded from the Farm Africa website.
He said: “This is the first time I have done anything like this before but it is a great campaign and was something I enjoyed doing so hopefully it can help.
COOKING UP A STORM: Kevin gets stuck in
“I wanted to do a dish that it was possible to do in Kenya which is why I used goat mince and white dumplings as it was specific to them and easy for the people of Kenya to get hold of.
“Been cooking professionally for 20 years which started by accident washing dishes in a pub then working in all sorts of different restaurants.”
Giving Tuesday takes place on December 1, just after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and asks people to do one simple charitable act on the day in the run-up to Christmas.
People can help out by making a donation, volunteering their time or just spreading the word at the start of the Christmas shopping season.
PICTURE PERFECT: The dish uses the same ingredients grown by Farm Africa
Farm Africa’s media relations manager, Tara Carey, said: “People can give some thing back and everyone together to celebrate giving. This campaign reached 68 countries last year and will be even more this year.”
The London-based charity founded in 1985 to provide the tools and expertise to enable smallholders in eastern Africa to increase their harvests, whether they farm crops, livestock, fish or the forest.
The countries Farm Africa work in include Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The charity train farmers to be more commercial, adding value to surpluses by milling, drying, or turning their produce into products that fetch a higher price.
FARM FRESH: Schoolchildren show off the produce
Tara, 41, who recently went to Nairobi to visit some of the children the charity have helped, spoke of the effect lack of food can have especially on children and how proud she is to work for the charity.
She said: “Hunger can affect children at school, as they are too hungry to learn and find it hard to concentrate, and these problems also affect their development.
“Children as young as eight go to work to collect enough food. Some parents send their children to school just to go and get a good meal.”
“It’s amazing, really fantastic to be involved in such a successful charity. Anything we can do to help is a real privilege.
“Our charity helps deal with malnutrition and the limited diet children in East Africa can suffer from.”
