Morwell Neighbourhood House – Peoples Kitchen

The Morwell Neighbourhood House’s (MNH) People’s Kitchen initiative has been doing incredible work for the most vulnerable in our community by providing nutritious meals to those in need.

In 2021, the Latrobe Health Assembly embarked on a joint research program with MNH to identify ways of expanding the service, its reach and, importantly, looking at ways of tackling food insecurity before the need even arises to seek the support of the People’s Kitchen.

Following this research, the Morwell Neighbourhood House partnered with the Latrobe Health Assembly to enable MNH to utilise their People’s Kitchen and related programs to implement an inclusive whole person approach to addressing issues of food security, health and wellbeing based on the following five potential solutions: 

• Enabling relevant community agencies to participate in Peoples Kitchen, Food Bank, and community garden activities (for implementation in 2022).  
• Reaching out to communities in the Latrobe Valley who are marginalised in relation to access to resources and services (for implementation in 2022). 
• Framing the Food Bank and Peoples Kitchen as a key point of access for clients and volunteers to government, health, and community services (for implementation in 2022). 
• Offering access for Peoples Kitchen participants to formal training, skills recognition, and vocational qualifications (planning July-Dec 2022 for implementation in 2023). 
• Investigating ways to engage secondary schools in addressing the question of food security and the feasibility for senior secondary students to participate in aspects of the People’s Kitchen concept (planning July-Dec 2022 for implementation in 2023).