Café Spice Namaste fundraising event raises almost £7,000 for The Asian Restaurant Skills Board

Cyrus and Pervin Todiwala hosted a fundraising event for The Asian Restaurant Skills Board and raised nearly £7,000 at their restaurant Café Spice Namaste last weekend.

Tutors and hospitality apprentices from the Colchester Institute worked alongsideTodiwala's kitchen brigade, demonstrating a key aim of the Asian Restaurant Skills Board: to provide real work experience in the preparation of Asian food to aspiring chefs, regardless of their ethnic background.

Among the attendees was chair of the Asian Restaurant Skills Board, Iqbal Wahhab OBE, founder of the Cinnamon Club and owner of Roast, who applauded the event and told guests that: "more curry means more jobs".

The guest of honour, the Rt Hon Don Foster MP, minister for integration at the Department of Communities and Local Government, drove home the importance to the Exchequer and to local communities of the Asian food industry, the significance of Asian cuisine to society and culture, and the government's commitment to supporting its future.

The main beneficiary of the night - the South Asian Cuisine Scholarship Scheme organised and delivered by the London School of Hospitality at the University of West London (UWL), headed up by Professor David Foskett MBE CMA sees scholarship students follow an undergraduate course leading to a degree in Culinary Arts Management at UWL, as well as placement opportunities in South Asian restaurants and the chance to be mentored by Asian chefs.

People 1st is also working through its Hospitality Guild and with the Asian and Oriental Cuisine Centres of Excellence, launched last year, to provide pre-employment training to unemployed people eager to become chefs in Asian and Oriental cooking and to gain places as apprentices in high-profile Asian restaurants.

For more information visit www.mastarachef.co.uk/scholarships.html