Carib Eats is launched at the recently opened Black Cultural Centre in Hornsey Road

COOKS with a mission to break down isolation over a Caribbean meal have arrived in Holloway.

Carib Eats launched a three-month residency at the recently opened Black Cultural Centre in Hornsey Road on Wednesday with a visit from the Mayor of Islington, plenty of food to taste and music from DJ AJ Online.

Ali Kakande, who set up Carib Eats after the Covid lockdown, said: “Times when I haven’t been feeling my best, I would have loved to have come to a place like this, and for my world to open up a little bit.”

In the wake of the pandemic, volunteers would offer food and company to vulnerable residents in Hackney and it has spread from there. During their residency, the space will be host to several community events including AI training, yoga, film screenings and acting and singing classes.

Guests included the mayor, Cllr Anjna Khurana

Jamila Daley-Jeffers, a freelance fundraising consultant and volunteer said: “I volunteer my time here and it brings me so much joy. Ali just seems to make connections with people and people want to help the cause.”

The centre opened in November with the aim to create an inclusive space for residents from black African and Caribbean heritage to feel at home and provide training opportunities for people, both young and old, across the borough.

Islington’s equalities chief Councillor Sheila Chapman said: “It’s our job to keep shouting about the Black Cultural Centre, to keep coming here, to keep telling everyone about it, to support Ali in the work she’s doing, and to keep thinking with the council about the long-term future of this space, to keep it secure for this community, so it will go from strength to strength.”