Image: Itab Azza
Rose had been living in Damascus since September 2010, learning Arabic with a view to potentially pursue a career in journalism or the aid sector. That suddenly changed when the civil war broke out in March 2011 and she was forced to leave Syria two months later. “I found myself unexpectedly back in the UK. I felt helpless, removed from the friends we’d made, the people we’d met, the life we’d been beginning to build.”
Wanting to do something to help their friends in Syria, Rose and three friends – Louisa Barnett, who lived in Damascus with Rose, George Butler and Johnnie Barnett – decided to turn their mutual love of food into a fundraising event, holding their first supper club in July 2012. “It was complete chaos,” Rose remembers, “but great fun.”
The foursome cooked up a feast of Syrian dishes and charged friends £10 to attend the event. “The one thing we really found was that people wanted a route to be able to help, they just didn’t know how to,” says Rose. “We found there’s a lack of trust in larger aid organisations and charities – just think of some of the news stories in recent years. The supper club gave our friends a simple, easy route to help.”