SOUTH Africa’s first blind Masterchef winner could one day be from Durban.
This week the KwaZulu-Natal Blind and Deaf Society (KZNBDS) said it would open a culinary school to cater for blind and deaf students at its headquarters in the city centre next year.
KZNBDS president Veetha Sewkuran said it would cost R500 000 to establish the kitchen and has asked the public to support its fundraising Diwali dinner at the Coastlands Hotel in Musgrave next Saturday.
Sewkuran said they hoped the event, which would be held in collaboration with the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre Consulate General of India Durban, would help them raise enough money to complete the kitchen .
“It’s going to take quite a lot of money trying to get the cupboards and the workstations and then all the electrical equipment, stoves, fridges, all of that. We have many blind and deaf youth who are unemployed purely due to lack of skills. So through this type of initiative, we’re hoping we can provide them with a skill to make them employable or they could start their own home industries. It doesn’t take much to learn to bake and do cake icing, so hopefully they will be able to empower themselves and open their own businesses as well.”
Sewkuran said their headquarters in Ismail C Meer Street in the city centre had eight floors and that was where the culinary school would be based.
She said one company had sponsored some of the workstations and cupboards, while another would sponsor the granite counter tops. But the stoves, fridges, pots and pans were costly which is why they needed as much public support as possible.
Sewkuran said many of their clients were inspired by Christine Huyền Trân Hà, a blind woman who won the third round of the Masterchef competition in the USA in 2012.
“She’s a very good role model for the blind and she actually owns her own restaurants now. So blind people can do whatever they want, it’s just that they need to be taught to do it the right way.”
Most of their cooking school’s blind students would probably use the skills for their own benefit but the deaf and even the partially sighted could turn it into a career, she said.
“Orientation and mobility is a very important service that we offer to people who have become newly blind. They have to be rehabilitated in every aspect of their lives, from taking care of themselves, to their homes, to how they dress and how they take public transport.
“So our orientation and mobility team will be present when we do the training for the blind at our cooking school. They will direct them on how to use the stove, how to use the kettle, how to use a microwave and that type of thing,” said Sewkuran.
Although they wanted their cooking programme to be accredited, they would go ahead with the training even if that still had to be approved, Sewkuran said.
KZNBDS is an 88-year-old organisation which offers a range of training courses such as sewing and computer skills to people who are blind and deaf.
Tickets for the Diwali fundraising dinner are R1 000 per person and tables of 10 can be booked. For bookings call 031 309 4991.