Cafe owners fundraise to open venue in Zanzibar

What do Wraysbury and Zanzibar have in common?

Not a lot at the moment, but cafe owners Gary and Nicky Hall are hoping to change that.

The couple run a cafe in Berkshire and are fundraising to open a new cafe in the Tanzanian group of islands that will train young people to cook and manage a business with the profits going to charity.

Mr Hall said he was inspired by a trip to the African country where he "was able to share my love of cooking with the locals".

Mr Hall explained that a year ago they hosted a charity evening at The Kitchen in Wraysbury raising money for Kenya and Zanzibar.

He said: "I expressed an interest in doing a little bit more for that charity and that's when I met Gasica, the founder of the Learning 4 Life Foundation."

Mr Hall told Kirsten O'Brien on BBC Radio Berkshire that: "Gascia came to the cafe, he was on a fundraising tour and we had a really nice chat.

"We talked first about me going out to Zanzibar and inspiring young people to cook.

"The more we talked, the more we thought 'why don't we open a cafe in Zanzibar?'

"What we decided was we would train and inspire these young people that were leaving school to manage and run the cafe with all the profits going back into the foundation."

Mr Hall and his wife visited Zanzibar and taught young adults cooking skills but he said "it didn't come without its challenges".

"It was a complete change because we were sitting on the floor cooking with gas bottles and frying pans whereas I'm used to a commercial kitchen as we have in our cafe," he said.

"So, I had to adapt a lot of what I know to their way of cooking and we would go out to the food markets, so I learnt a lot about the ingredients that they cook with out there.

"It was a challenge unlike anything I'd ever taken on before.

"I had a great time with all of the young people I taught, it was an absolute joy."

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