A female-led project from Modena is one of the two winners of the Champions of Change 2024 award from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. This is Roots, a social enterprise model led by migrant women that operates as a co-working space during the day and a restaurant in the evening, born from the initiative of Caroline Caporossi and Jessica Rosval, founders of the Association for the Integration of Women. Rosval is a talented chef from the Bottura galaxy and manages the kitchen of Casa Luigia, the retreat created by the Modena chef in the Emilian countryside.
The award goes to what The World’s 50 Best Restaurants defines as “hospitality heroes, at the forefront of initiatives for the long-term progress of the sector and their local communities”. The idea was born in 2021 to celebrate the “silent protagonists of change in catering and gastronomy”, when the hospitality sector was rebuilding after the pandemic. This year, in addition to the Modena project, the activity of a Brazilian chef, João Diamante, who works towards the goal of creating a better future for the young people of Rio’s favelas, is being rewarded. 50 Best will support the winners’ initiatives with a donation.
In April 2020, US-born Caroline Caporossi and Canadian chef Jessica Rosval founded the Association for the Integration of Women, with the aim of offering women the tools to assert themselves and grow. In 2022, together with co-founder Maria Assunta Ioele, they opened Roots as a self-sufficient social impact model, meeting place and incubator for the future. It is a space where “migrant women can learn, work and develop self-confidence by taking their first steps towards a career in Modena”.
The mission is simple: to provide migrant women, considered the most disadvantaged category in social and economic integration across the EU, with resources for professional growth. From cooking training to social support and initiatives to facilitate access to the job market, Roots aims to support these women beyond the kitchen to build their own future opportunities, building the skills and self-confidence needed to secure future roles in the gastronomy of Modena and beyond.
The Association for the Integration of Women, made up entirely of volunteer members from different cultural and professional backgrounds, trains 12 women every year in a four-month cycle. Candidates are nominated by community partners and selected based on their language skills, motivation and passion for food, each with their own individual menu, inspired by their nationality and background.
“We are proud of our students – say Caroline Caporossi and Jessica Rosval – the success of Roots is made possible by the value they bring to our cuisine every day and this award is further testimony to the human and economic capital of women around the world” .
João Diamante, with the social project Diamantes Na Cozinha, also offers opportunities in the culinary and entrepreneurial sector for young people living in disadvantaged situations in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
Also raised in a favela, Diamante benefited from social programs during his adolescence before joining the Brazilian navy, where he began working as a kitchen assistant. After five years of apprenticeship, he attended gastronomy college and then trained in Paris with Alain Ducasse. Returning to Rio in 2016, he founded Diamantes Na Cozinha, since then helping over 3,000 people escape a future of violence and drug addiction, the most common problems in Brazilian favelas.
Diamantes Na Cozinha courses include hospitality, cooking, food anthropology and cocktail making. From its beginnings in a small space where lessons were held on a rotating basis, it now trains up to 100 students in six-month courses. Earlier this year, Diamante opened his own restaurant in Rio, Diamante Gastrobar, where most of the staff come from his school.
