Able Arts CIC provides autistic people and people with learning disabilities experience in the creative industries. Artists get the opportunity to sell the art they create and receive 50% of the profit.

Founded in 2020, Able Arts initially provided discounted art workshops for people with additional support needs. Participating artists had the opportunity to sell their artwork. Throughout the pandemic, Able Arts changed their model and offered art competitions to local people. Artists with learning disabilities and autism participating in these contests have been able to sell their art, build their confidence and develop employability skills.

Able Arts worked with us on our third cookbook, Secret Dishes From Around the World 3. They commissioned the fantastic artist Georgia Yuill to create a drawing for the project.

Edinburgh North East Foodbank and Edinburgh South East Foodbank are organisations seeded by the Trussell Trust that provide invaluable services to the local community. They help individuals and families in crisis, through the provision of emergency food supplies. 

We worked with Edinburgh NE Foodbank and Edinburgh SE Foodbank during our 2021 Reverse Advent Calendar Campaign. The project encouraged people to donate a specific item to their local food bank every day leading up to Christmas. We created a resource hub on our website with information about food banks across the country and promoted our free donation tracker to help people support their local food bank.

Empty Kitchens Full Hearts is a charitable enterprise dedicated to fighting food poverty in Edinburgh. The project is based on a system of redistribution for surplus food, ensuring that people all across Edinburgh can access a good quality meal without cost or judgement. This is achieved through the project’s ‘Day Pack’ delivery scheme, according to which volunteers prepare, package and distribute free meals throughout their community to those who need them most. Since April 2020, Empty Kitchens Full Hearts has delivered over a million free meals to Edinburgh’s most marginalised residents. As an organisation advocating a full revaluation of how food is distributed throughout our country, Empty Kitchens Full Hearts aims to create a world in which its services are no longer needed by lobbying the government and promoting food education.

We also admire the work of U-Evolve – a social enterprise delivering therapeutic coaching and skill development to young people throughout Edinburgh. Under current government programs, it can be difficult for young people to access the psychological and therapeutic help they need before reaching a point of crisis. U-Evolve has sought to tackle this problem by running workshops on mental health awareness, self-esteem and body image issues, as well as by giving young people access to psychological help from trained professionals. Meanwhile, U-Evolve’s TALK Hub program has made online coaching and education on mental health readily accessible through the internet. The enterprise also offers help for parents and carers, and has worked consistently to destigmatize mental illness by reaching out to local schools and youth clubs.

Our Community Cookery School team visited Edinburgh as part of the Secret Dishes From Around the World book tour in 2021. Whilst we were there, we spoke to Ashlynn Wardle from Able Arts CIC, the Edinburgh organisation who helped to commission the artwork for the Chilean section of the cookbook. You can listen to the interview on our Share Your Secrets podcast, which is available for free via Spotify, Google and Apple!