Pop-up Food Markets - AfriAus iLEAC Inc

How can you benefit?

The current pop-up food relief market provides FREE culturally appropriate food packages – called ‘Luvpacks’ – in a dignified way, to vulnerable African Victorian and other CALD single mothers, women with large families, unemployed, under-employed (low income earners), jobseekers, women with disabilities, mothers with children with disabilities, international students, new arrivals (refugee and asylum seekers). To encourage and embrace choice, some of the food items are on display for people to walk around and choose what they need. Choice is very critical as some people react to certain foods. The displayed food includes ethnic fresh vegetables, fruits fish and selected staple pre-packaged dried foods.

Also, there is provision of culturally appropriate health literacy, food literacy and financial counselling to targeted individuals or small groups, face-to-face and/or online. The counselling sessions are conducted via the partnership with Tender Care Services, Klinical Support Services, Living and Learning Pakenham (LLP), and South East Community Links (SECL), to mention a few partner organisations. It is expected that some of the targeted people will be enabled to start managing their finances and spend wisely according to their earnings.

AfriAus iLEAC’s with its LUVPACKS’s Saturday market meet the gap in weekend service provision when our main emergency food relief provider (Salvation Army) is closed and complement the ‘Better Wellbeing Together Initiative’ operating on Thursday evenings for direct referrals to AfriAus iLEAC for ongoing culturally appropriate food and other support.

The ‘CALD Victorians Networking Food Choices Luvpacks’ supports new methods of providing food relief to people facing vulnerability in areas of greatest need by including but not limited to creating an online ordering platform and taking orders accordingly, to scale up access to food and AfriAus iLEAC’s performance; and proving ‘choose & pick’ option, encouraging the choice of healthy foods.

AfriAus iLEAC (AAi) works collaboratively with our partners Kanique Catering, ZzAa Food and Gilgal Health Services to provide healthier and culturally appropriate pre-cooked and prepacked meals (hot and cold). Some of these, such as the frozen African Pelau, can stay for one month. This also helps people in isolation due to COVID-19 to have healthier food supplies.

About the project

Since 2020 to-date, in a partnership approach model, based at Living and Learning Pakenham, AfriAus iLEAC has been distributing culturally appropriate food relief packages called ‘Luvpacks’, and other basic needs to 470 Victorian African and other Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) single mothers, mothers with large families, low income earners, unemployed, under-employed women, refugees and asylum seekers. At this stage, AfriAus iLEAC distributes the ‘Luvpacks’ to target African Victorians and other CALD families, homeless people and asylum seekers, on demand, due to lack of sufficient financial resources. The current Pop-up Food Market project titled ‘CALD Victorians Networking for Healthy and Culturally Appropriate Food Choices Luvpacks’ aims at:

1 – Enabling the target African and other CALD cohorts and individuals facing vulnerability to easily access healthy and culturally appropriate food relief in a dignified way.

2 – Supporting the target audience to access other community supports and services to increase their food literacy and food security.

3 – Developing and using new methods of providing food relief to people facing vulnerability in areas of greatest need. This includes but not limited to creating an online ordering platform and taking orders accordingly, to scale up access to food and AfriAus iLEAC’s performance; and providing ‘choose and pick’ option, encouraging the choice of healthy

4 – Reducing barriers to food security by strengthening networks of community supports and services (Leveraging the partnership, ongoing).

Activities

The following activities are delivered via the LUVPACKS Partnership:

1 – Providing culturally appropriate food packages – called ‘Luvpacks’. To encourage and embrace choice, some of the food items are on display for people to walk around and choose what they Choice is very critical as some people react to certain foods. The displayed food includes ethnic fresh vegetables, fruits fish and selected staple pre-packaged dried foods.

2 – Provide culturally appropriate pre-cooked and prepacked meals (hot and cold). Some of these, such as the African Pelau, can stay for one month when we’ll frozen.

3 – Demonstrating how to cook healthy culturally appropriate food – selected recipes/meals. Recipe cards are distributed with the food ‘Luvpacks’.

4 – Providing culturally appropriate food counseling to targeted individuals or small groups, face-to-face and/or Food counseling sessions are conducted via the partnership with Living and Learning Pakenham and/or South East Community Links (SECL).

5 – Receiving referrals from ‘Better Wellbeing Together Initiative by ADRA, from their Thursdays pop-up food markets – any individuals and families which need culturally appropriate food.

Rabecca Mphande

President and Co-founding Director

Rabecca is the President and Co-founding Director of AfriAus iLEAC: Inspire Lead Educate Advocate for Change (AfriAus iLEAC – https://www.afriausileac.org) as well as the Chairperson for Pan African Australasian Diaspora Network (PAADN) Women, Men & Gender Equity. By profession, she is an educator – 34 years long inspiring teaching experience as a secondary school teacher. She has been teaching English, English as an Additional Language, Literacy and Humanities at Hampton Park Secondary College in Victoria, Australia since 2004.

She has built the capacity of and continues to be passionate about creating opportunities for empowerment, ‘copowerment’ and promoting diaspora African and other culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women, the ‘Girl Child’, youth at, people who are physically challenged and families to reduce inequalities, unfairness, injustices, discrimination, gendered bias and violence. Rabecca advocates for enhanced and recognised role of a woman, the ‘Girl Child’ and youth in sustainable development in host countries (e.g. Australia, Switzerland, etc) and countries of origin (e.g. Malawi, South Sudan, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, etc) to contribute towards closing the gender gap.

She promotes unity in diversity to achieve common goals. Rabecca fosters Love as a tool to attain everlasting peace within oneself, the family, community, nation and globally.

She provides holistic approaches that timely intervene in and prevent chronic settlement and integration issues of diaspora African and other CALD women, youth and families.

Rabecca does not only initiate and strengthen partnerships but she also initiates and leads the co-designing and co-delivering of relevant and timely programs/projects.

Rabecca has excellent communication oral and written skills in English and Malawian languages such as Chichewa (Nyanja), Chitonga and Chitumbuka.

She also has excellent public speaking skills i.e. she has been one of the speakers/presenters at women, youth, family, the Girl Child and community conferences, annual festivals, forums, colloquium, summits and such like, since 2013.

Rabecca’s recognition includes:

Sponsored in 2019 November by the African Union-CIDO, as one of the 6 PAADN delegates to the Africa-China Conference when PAADN delegates shared their achievements in Australia
At State level – She was appointed as 2019-2021 Victoria Multicultural Commission Regional Advisory Council Member; 2018 to-date Victoria African Communities Action Plan Implementation Committee Member
AWARDS:
- 2015 Ministerial Award – Winner of Women in Leadership
- 2019 Outstanding dedication & commitment for the African Australian Communities in Victoria
- 2018 African Communities Champion Award
- 2018 Lifetime Recognition Service to African Australian Communities Award
- 2015 Ambassador for Peace Award

Rabecca also has commendable grant-writing capacity that benefit African and other CALD communities in Victoria.

Also, see: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-african-australian-success-stories-you-ve-probably-never-heard-20180421-p4zay1.html

Charles Mphande

Co-Founding Director and Secretary

He lectures in International Community Development with interests in discourse in development and other settings; network analysis, especially among emerging communities in Australia; knowledge democracy movements and the growing space for social economy and its promise to the Global South. Further, Charles is interested in learning and teaching in such interdisciplinary human sciences areas as community development. He brings to the International Development Course, not only his academic expertise and experience but also the benefits of his years of experience in international development practice with communities, grassroots organisations and multilateral bodies in international development.

From 2006 to 2007 Charles was the English Language/ESOL and Communication consultant in the Language Across the Curriculum Grant for the Electronic & Electrical Engineering Faculty at Victoria University, involved with the newly introduced problem-based learning (PBL) program. Charles developed the content and ran the orientation and clinical workshops for staff aimed at helping staff handle students’ academic communication and English-language needs in the problem-based learning context. While the orientation workshops dealt with theoretical bases of (English language) self-/participant–directed learning, the clinical workshops involved hands-on discourse analysis of students’ reports and reflective journals to single out student (English language) learning progress or/and problems, as well as their general progress in learning how to learn experience, to avert possible learner attrition.

Dr Mphande has years of experience working with civil society organisations overseas in long-term development and social mobilisation, especially for girls’ education, and health. Further, he has hands-on overseas experience doing commissioned evaluations of national development programs funded by World Bank. While he was engaged in evaluation of programs in general, he was particularly called upon to evaluate the information education and communication (IEC) functions.

Charles is an academic editor of The Asian English for Specific Purposes Journal. He is also an active member of the Communication and Partnerships team of Engagement Australia. He has received awards for excellence in research and research training, and excellence in work towards education of African-Australians and Africa.

Qualifications

PhD, Victoria University, Australia, 2006
Master of Arts, University of Warwick, U.K., 1997
Bachelor of Education (Honours), University of Malawi, 1993
Bachelor of Education, University of Malawi, 1983

Wesley Mwafulirwa

Legal Attorney

Co Founder of Kawelo Lawyers. Wesley is a skilled humble, passionate Attorney with a vision, within the few years of his career he has quickly risen to become on of the most prominent lawyers in Malawi. From winning big cases to international recognition and awards in the outstanding performance in Fighting against HIV and Injustice. Currently Managing Kawelo lawyers firm. Welsey possess a remarkable big five skill set for a great lawyers namely;

Analytical ability.
Attention to detail.
Logical reasoning.
Unresistant Persuasiveness.
Sound judgment

Chikondi Mphande

Board Member

Business lady, Youth worker and leader in women Table Banking.

Victor Bhuttiesuzgo Mphande

High School Teacher, Youth Worker, Accountant, keen Leadership and Management for Change and Soccer Coach & Mentor.

Fulata Moyo

Vice President & Project Manager

Dr Fulata Lusungu Moyo is a resource developer of the Healing Together and Parenting: A Journey of Love. She is Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy student and a facilitator of the Healing of Memories. She is a co-founder of Stream, a trauma holistic healing accompaniment for survivors of sex
trafficking. She is a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.

She has been the World Council of Church’s (WCC) consultant for Trauma Transformation and Resilience developing an ecumenical trauma resilience resource for churches in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Sudan. She served as WCC Programme Executive for A Just Community of Wo/Men 2007-2018. She was a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School developing an ethics of care in response to human trafficking and sexual violence with a strong component on how
trafficked and sexually violated women and girls can be accompanied for healing.

As WCC Programme Executive for A Just Community of Women and Men (2007-2018), she revived and globalized the Thursdays in Black campaign against rape and violence. She convened the process of gender justice policy, gender awareness and trainings in transformative masculinities and femininities, as well gender advocacy trainings in human rights instruments including the United Nation’s CEDAW, UPR, UNSCR1325, and SDG 3 & 5. She has convened several
international gatherings of women and men. She has researched and published widely in gender and religion.

She earned a PhD in Human Sciences from the School of Religion and Theology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa with a focus in gender and sexual ethics.

Rhoda Moyo

Project Manager and Accountant

Having completed her Bachelor’s degree in Business and Management at Deakin University in Australia, and a Diploma in Commerce at Melbourne Institute of Business and Technology, Rhoda has built a global fashion empire from a young age of 21 years, called RKM Global Fashion. She is an entrepreneur who is a force to reckon with and a trail blazer everywhere she goes. She is currently located in Switzerland, working as a Communication Finance coordinator and a project Assistant at the World Council of Churches, continuing to expand her business in Europe on a part time basis, a full time young mum and married to a web developer and designer, Luthando Moyo- making them a dream team for the different projects they work on outside their professional jobs.

She is skilled in fashion, dress making and styling, accountancy, data analysis, administration support, events planning & management and web editing. She enjoys putting these skills and talents to use for community work/projects.

More of Rhoda’s work can be seen on her website- www.rkmfashion.com

Nelly Wendot

Doctor of Philosophy Candidate
Victoria University Footscray Park,
Melbourne, Australia

Nelly Natii Wendot is a doctoral student at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. She has worked in the hospitality industry and later moved on to work in the not-for-profit sector. She has broad experience with poverty reduction programs and projects operating in Kenya, and she went on to join the Table Banking movement in Kenya. She has formed one functioning Table Banking Group. Assisted in setting up other Table Banking Groups in Kenya. Her experience with Table Banking groups in Kenya drove her to do a robust study to contribute to their wealth creation efficacy.

The founder Baringo Natural Honey Pot enterprise in Kenya.

Her vision is to contribute towards strategies and policies which will raise the living standard of the vulnerable communities in Africa while considering the Agenda 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Which include number: 1, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 17 goals.

Pop-up Food Relief Markets

CALD Victorians Networking for Healthy Culturally Appropriate Food Choices

About the project

How can you benefit?

Activities

Why the Department is Funding this Activity

Calendar of our “Free food corner” pop up markets

UPCOMING- 27th May 2023, Cardinia Shire

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Melton Food pop up

Pakenham Food Market

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How can you benefit?

About the project

Activities

Rabecca Mphande

Charles Mphande

Wesley Mwafulirwa

Chikondi Mphande

Fulata Moyo

Rhoda Moyo

Nelly Wendot