An Abuja based chef, Shetu Gamaliel professionally known as Chef Mini, has urged the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesome Wike, to include her cooking school initiative in his agenda, in order to empower children, teenagers and adults with a life skill.
According to Tribune, Gamaliel gave this urge over the weekend during the fourth edition of food fest and cook off competition for children in Abuja.
She said, “This is us equipping little children with life skill, being able to learn something that everybody needs, everybody needs to learn how to cook, everybody eats and also to be able to turn it to a trade when they want to.
“Definitely, that’s our dream and our goal because there are a lot of children out there that needs help with this training but do not have the resources to partake in it, so we have a platform where we can collaborate with the FCTA to be able to help empower this children and empower not only children, adults, teenagers and all that.
“There are no job opportunities out there and we hope that the new FCT minister, His Excellency Nyesome Wike with his big dream and the vision that he has come with to the FCT, we are praying and hoping that he would be able to factor us in somehow, into his agenda, how to empower young children, young adults, women and even men alike.
“This is the fourth edition, this is the fourth year we are this in a roll, and if I must say, we are the first to do this in Nigeria for children, we thank God that it has come far, my goal is to put Nigeria on the culinary map and we could use our children to do that, to put Nigeria on the culinary map just the way Hilda Bassey has done with her Cookathan, she prepared herself for four years for that, we have been doing this for ten years, we believe this is the time for us to do on a bigger scale in collaboration with our government and put it out there.”
Five teams competed in the cooking competition, and at the end of day team Emerald emerged victorious, team Diamond runner’s up, team Ruby third, team Gold fourth, while team sapphire came fifth.
A member of the winning team Emerald, seven-year-old Omayioza Damisa, while speaking with journalists said, “We feel fine and happy for winning, other people should come and enjoy themselves in this Chef Mini culinary school and know how to cook and make foods that other people have never tasted before, I say thank you to our parents and God bless them for bringing us here.”
