Meet the Tarrawanna dietitian who likes to 'Stir It Up!'

I first met Tarrawanna local Manami Henderson at Stir It Up! (SIU) training in 2017. Stir It Up! – a program run at that time by the Illawarra Shoalhaven Health Promotion Service – trains passionate community members to be peer educators in healthy eating and cooking. Manami credits SIU with changing the course of her life.

Manami arrived in Wollongong from Japan in 2004 to complete her training in nutrition and dietetics. Upon arrival, she completed an English course and then enrolled in two masters degrees at the University of Wollongong. With some credits from her studies in Japan, she graduated in 2007 with a Master of Nutrition Management and Master of Nutrition Dietetics.

Her training provided the background required to undertake clinical work, which she did in Sydney, Nowra, Bowral and Liverpool. During this time she had three children with her husband, Dave. Manami decided that clinical work was not where her passion lay, and eventually found SIU.

The Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District's Health Promotion Service developed SIU in conjunction with non-profit organisation Healthy Cities. The first cohort of peer educators was trained in 2010. The program has evolved over the years with participants now receiving a nationally recognised qualification through a partnership with Kiama Community College. Healthy Cities is now the lead organisation for Stir It Up!

Manami (and I) completed the training with Kiama Community College in 2017 and we both went off into the community to promote good food and healthy eating. Manami loved this work and during 2018 and 2019 volunteered to lead many groups. In 2020, as Covid put a stop to SIU in the community, she was offered work at Heathy Cities as a health promotion officer in community nutrition and food security. Now Manami, along with colleague Ingrid Ferguson-Pillay, manages SIU, the peer educators and their training program.

Manami says, “SIU really opened up a new chapter as a dietitian and a member of Illawarra community, to meet similar-minded, passionate and amazing people, and then I really started to feel to be part of the community.”

Manami is also involved in the Cook, Chill, Chat program run by Healthy Cities. This is an established, well-attended eight-week program with huge benefits to the community. Disappointingly, the funding for this program has been lost, so unless a new funding source is found it will no longer operate.

Another exciting new project Manami and her Healthy Cities colleagues are embarking on is the Dinner Table project, which brings families together to cook, eat and socialise. This will run once a week for six weeks and will offer guidance in healthy eating, kitchen and food safety. The project will run at Warilla Neighbourhood Centre this year and in other locations in the new year.

Passionate about Japanese cookery, Manami also manages to find time to share her knowledge about cooking traditional dishes like okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake), omelette, miso soup and rice bowls through WEA, Makeshift and Nina Cantina.

Manami makes her own miso, a fermented paste, and also teaches this skill to others. With a very long period of fermentation, the whole process often takes six months. She makes a large batch, which is used sparingly in dishes due to its intense flavour. She showed me the two batches that she is currently nurturing – one a soy bean base and the other a lentil base. Chickpeas can also be used. Regardless of the medium, it is inoculated with koji (a type of mould) and left in a warm place to work its magic.

Find out more about what Manami is doing on her Facebook page