Where are you from? How long have you been in Paris?
I am from Pakistan, I came to Paris five and a half years ago for study purposes and after finishing my Master’s in Business Analysis and Consultancy I started working full time.
How did your journey with STCP start?
During the summer of 2021, just after the first wave of COVID, a Belgian friend found out about Serve The City Paris online and we decided to give it a go: our first ever activity was a food distribution in Châtelet. It was an amazing experience but I got very busy with work and I did not come back until summer of 2023. However, I haven’t left since then!
When did Soup Kitchen start and why?
After participating in a mobility program in Poland where we volunteered with the local chapter to make a lovely soup to distribute, I felt that we needed to have something similar in Paris. Our food distribution has an important role to play in reducing waste but I felt we needed to take it one step further by providing freshly prepared hot meals to our beneficiaries. The mobility program was followed by a Serve The City International Forum, where we had plenty of inspiration and motivation. On the way back, someone suggested another association who runs a soup kitchen in Paris every Sunday called “Assiette Migrant” and so I decided to volunteer with them to learn. Little did I know that I was going to go on to become the catalyst to create the partnership between our association and Assiette Migrant. Assiette Migrant wanted to expand operations to include more days but lacked enough volunteers to do so, and thus the Saturday Soup Kitchen was born taking place every other week. We use the facility provided to Assiette Migrant thanks to Accueil Goutte d’Or (AGO), a social center and we bring the volunteers. STCP also supplements volunteers to Assiette Migrant every Sunday.
That’s great! And…
Who is the main chef behind Soup Kitchen?
It depends, but usually it’s Basit from Assiette Migrant who is a professional chef. Otherwise there is David the head of Assiette Migrant, and if nobody is there… it’s me!
Can you say you are satisfied with the amount of volunteers participating at Soup Kitchen?
Yes, yes, sometimes we even have too many volunteers. There is a limitation due to the size of the kitchen that cannot accomodate too many of us! But there is a yard that is used when the weather is warmer and it can accomodate a lot more people. Overall, the activity has been very popular, I have had feedback saying that it’s fun because you’re collaborating directly with other volunteers during the cooking and it affords more time to mingle. However, we sometimes have trouble attracting volunteers for distribution, as it takes place later in the evening on a Saturday night.
I agree.
Do you still think there might be anything that could be improved?
I definitely look forward to increasing the number of days the activity takes place, for example instead of doing it every other Saturday, doing it every Saturday, to create a regularity for beneficiaries to depend on us.
What is your favorite thing about Soup Kitchen?
I love that you get to interact with all the volunteers, and I especially enjoy the cooking part!
Wonderful! One last question:
What does Serve The City Paris mean to you?
For me, Serve The City Paris is really an enabler. You see, you can’t do all of this on your own. But with the overall support system, all the guidance you receive, and all the volunteers who bring so much willingness to help, you can actually make a difference.
