Story by Amina Souleiman | Photo by Amy Palmer
Social enterprise Globalmama have outlined ambitious plans to expand its catering business and community empowerment activities by investing over £300,000 in Burngreave.
Globalmama started was in 2008 by a group of eight women, mainly from the Somali community, who wanted to improve their English and help their families. In 2010 we became Globalmama Enterprises Ltd. to trade and raise money to invest in the future.
We began as a small group who came together to cook and discuss the issues we faced within our families and community. We started to sell the food we made at local festivals, and quickly realised that selling to customers was a much better way of learning English and building our confidence than most courses. Our food was really popular too!
In the past seven years both the catering and community empowerment sides of Globalmama have grown significantly. The organisation is now in the final stages of negotiating the purchase of 12-14 Burngreave Road from Sheffield City Council, and turn the building into an affordable community venue that local people have a real stake in. Globalmama is even planning to offer the community a chance to buy shares in the business, so that local people really can own it, have a say in how it is run and most importantly, benefit from its success.
Globalmama has been looking for a permanent base for some time to expand and grow activities. So when Sheffield City Council put 12-14 Burngreave Road on the market last winter they knew they had to pull out all the stops to buy it.
We are really excited about our plans for 12-14 Burngreave Road. We want it to be for the whole community, and a positive facility that looks out from Burngreave to the rest of the city, so people feel that they are linked to all the great things that Sheffield has to offer – which sadly isn’t always the case at the moment.
Plans for the refurbished building include offices, meeting & function rooms and a café that tells the stories of all the communities in the area in their words.
