The Queensland Country Women’s Association is looking to gain another grant from the Queensland Government to continue the Country Kitchens program.
The QCWA received a $2.5 million grant in 2015 to roll out the Country Kitchens program across the state until June 2018.
Speaking at the QCWA conference in Brisbane this week, Country Kitchens program coordinator Fiona McKenzie said she was hoping to get a five year grant so that the end of the program would coincide with QCWA’s 100th birthday.
“It would be kind of nice to finish at the 100 year birthday, because our program is all about building capacity in the women,” she said.
The Country Kitchens program aims to support people living in regional, rural and remote Queensland to improve their health by adopting healthier eating practices.
Ms McKenzie said the nutritionists responsible for rolling out the QCWA Country Kitchens program work to mix their nutrition expertise with the CWA ladies’ cooking expertise.
“These ladies have just got a great reputation for cooking and they're wonderful at holding these cooking classes in their communities,” she said.
“We want to equip them with everything that they need to run them without us.
“The intention is that perhaps in five years time that they'll be running them everywhere over the state and only perhaps have one or two of us that gives them the support of nutrition information.
“I don't want to do dietitians out of a job, but what the program's all about is these ladies that live in the communities know what the problems are and with a little bit of help from the health professional they can actually make it more relevant so that the community they're advising makes the changes.”
