In January, CWS Japan hosted a hands-on Tunisian chapati cooking class, bringing together newcomers and local residents for a shared cultural experience. Through events like these, the cafe fosters deeper connections, promotes cross-cultural understanding and creates a welcoming space where the community can engage and learn from one another.
CWS Japan recently opened a café—the Community Cafe @ Okubo—with ecumenical partners to aid the relationship building between refugee and asylum seeker newcomers and local communities in Japan. This month, we held our first event of the new year—a chapati cooking class!
Making Tunisian Chapati
On Wednesday, January 15, CWS Japan hosted the “Chapati Making Class from Scratch” cooking class at the Community Cafe @ Okubo. This popular cooking event is always fully booked, and we were thrilled to welcome guest instructor Jalel from Tunisia to hold the chapati class.
The participants divided the work and started by mixing and kneading the dough. While waiting for the kneaded dough to ferment, we even made an extra lemonade using organic lemons brought by the participants, which was a clever idea!
The Tunisian way of cooking chapati is to use condensed milk instead of honey. Then, we fried the fermented dough in a frying pan, spread it with North African seasoning harissa and cream cheese, stuffed it with ingredients such as tuna, and the chapati was complete!
Tunisia is a country located in North Africa, but its food culture has been influenced by Europe across the strait. The Tunisian-style, hearty chapati with a European taste was very popular and delicious! The participants were seen taking notes on how to make it, and it seemed like they had a great time.
Looking Ahead
The Community Cafe @ Okubo continues to bring people together through engaging events. In January, the long-awaited evening café featured Setsuko Ito, who shared insights on international business networking and disaster preparedness in Okubo’s diverse community. February’s lineup includes a collaboration with the Okubo Community Center, featuring Nepalese curry with sobagaki and a special evening of ukulele music and storytelling to warm up the winter season.
More than just a gathering space, the Community Cafe plays a vital role in integrating refugee and asylum seeker communities with local residents, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual understanding. By creating opportunities for cultural exchange through food, music and discussion, the cafe helps break down barriers, challenge stereotypes and build meaningful connections. In a world where newcomers often face isolation, spaces like these offer a much-needed sense of community and a true place of welcome.
Nozomi Igarashi is a Project Officer with CWS Japan. To learn more about the work of CWS Japan, visit their website (in Japanese) or click here.