We are Louis & Marine, founders of the Refugee Food Festival, of which the first edition took place in 2016 in Paris, the second one in 2017 in 11 cities in Europe, thanks to Bettina, Amélie and other volunteers, to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Paris Office, especially by Céline Schmitt, Spokesperson, and Fadma Moumtaz, Public Information Associate, and supported by the UNHCR Innovation Unit.
After Very Food Trip, our home food world tour, we realised that food is an incredibly powerful and universal means of communication; it connects and brings cultures together.
In the midst of the ‘migrant crisis’, we wished to mobilise the values of food and of the French culinary scene in order to take a stand against the prejudicial and dangerous rhetoric used against refugees, all the while raising awareness amongst French citizens by appealing to their taste buds!
How? By giving refugee chefs access to French restaurants’ kitchens to showcase their talents, support their entry in the job market, while giving everyone the opportunity to discover foreign culinary traditions.
Photo ©Nicolas Boyer
On the 2016 World Refugee Day, the first edition of the Refugee Food Festival mobilised 11 Parisian restaurants, hosting 8 refugee chefs over 5 days. The 2nd edition took place in 2017 in Paris, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Amsterdam, Brussels, Athens, Madrid, Florence, Geneva, and gathered 90 refugee cooks from 25 nationalities, in more than 100 restaurants. In each of these cities, the festival was organized by a local citizen, a "project holder" who contacted us to deploy the project in his city.
Up to 20,000 people attended the events, which was covered by media from all over the world. The festival appealed to all participants’ most personal and universal trait: their taste and love for food. Following the success of this first edition, citizens from all over the globe reached out to us to organise a Refugee Food Festival in their city.
This methodological toolkit (in addition to a big toolbox!), is designed to enable citizens to organise their very own Refugee Food Festival, with our support, and the one of UNHCR local offices. We offer you all the tools and teachings of the past editions that will allow you to realize what it means to organize a Refugee Food Festival : from targeting the chefs and restaurants, to the logistics and budget of the event, to community management. With ongoing support from our part and training sessions, everyone now has the tools to engage at any level, and organise their very own local Refugee Food Festival.
If you want to develop the Refugee Food Festival in your city in June, you can contact us at [email protected] and we can see together if we can accompany you in the development of the Refugee Food Festival in your city. To develop the project in your city, you will need to hold the "agreement" from the association Food Sweet Food that is granted to each project leader. Contact us!
Welcome !
The Refugee Food Festival Founding Team
