50 Best has announced its Champions of Change 2022 heroes of hospitality who are creating a positive change for their communities through their work.
One of winners is Dieuveil Malonga, the 30-year-old chef of restaurant Meza Malonga in Kigali, Rwanda, which he opened in 2020. Malonga’s mission is to “write a new story of gastronomy which has its roots in Africa and contribute to establish furthermore African cuisine as gourmet”. Born in Congo, he moved to Germany at age 13, then later to Marseille. His quest to create a culinary bridge between African flavors and Western cuisine has seen him visit 38 of Africa’s 54 states. He is also the founder of Chefs in Africa, an online platform that cultivates the talent and culinary passion found in Africa by helping cooks overcome barriers such as lack of training, employment and equipment, as well as discrimination. Chefs in Africa connects government institutions, training centers, and businesses with professional chefs and young culinary students or apprentices from across the continent who are looking for work experience. It currently has over 4,000 African chefs as members.
Also recognized is Koh Seng Choon, the founder of Dignity Kitchen, Asia’s first community food court managed by people with disabilities. After studying engineering and business administration in the UK, Seng Choon returned to Singapore to set up his own management consultancy firm. In 2010, at the age of 50, he gave up his successful career to focus on social entrepreneurship and opened the first Dignity Kitchen in Singapore, followed by a Hong Kong location in December 2019.
Dignity Kitchen acts as a school to train the disabled and the disadvantaged to be hawker stall operators. Having pivoted to community service during the pandemic, providing warm food to homeless shelters and nursing homes, as well as food vouchers to minority groups, it offers customers a system to "pay it forward" to give meals to the needy. Dignity Kitchen is part of Project Dignity, which supports people with disabilities through several other initiatives created by Seng Choon, including Dignity Mama, a second-hand book shop managed by mothers and their challenged children, and Dignity Meal, a food security initiative for the disadvantaged, among others.
London-based friends Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina are also being recognized. They launched a food fundraising initiative for UNICEF called #CookForUkraine in response to the war in Ukraine, where Hercules was born. After leaving her hometown of Kakhova for university in the UK, she quit her job as a reporter after the 2008 financial crisis to pursue her dream to cook for a living, working at restaurants including Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer, before publishing her cookbook, Mamushka, celebrating her family recipes. Russian food writer, chef, cookery teacher, and events curator Timoshkina moved to the UK to study film history and lectured about Russian and European cinema, before her passion for cooking led her to establish a cinema-supper club called KinoVino.
#CookForUkraine aims to increase awareness of the humanitarian crisis and raise money to help children and families displaced by the war, as well as providing a platform for Ukrainian families and their supporters to share recipes, along with the stories behind those dishes. Through the campaign, the duo is collaborating with London restaurants to host special dinners and sell specific menu items to raise funds, which are sent to UNICEF to provide on-the-ground support and emergency care to refugee families. Since its inception, the campaign has nearly £900,000 to date. Hercules and Timoshkina plan to continue to develop the #CookForUkraine campaign, currently working on a hospitality-focused workplace scheme for Ukrainian refugees, a cooking school staffed by Ukrainian cooks, and more.
William Drew, director of content for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, said in a statement: “After launching Champions of Change last year, we are thrilled to recognise the incredible work that Dieuveil, Koh Seng, and Olia and Alissa are doing for their communities. We have the utmost respect for the drive and passion they’ve shown for creating meaningful change and we’re honoured to be able to support their brilliant work.”
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022 awards, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, will be hosted in London on July 18.
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