It’s a bright and peaceful Saturday morning and there’s nothing like enjoying your free time sipping on some coffee and digging into a brunch. But renowned chef Fatima Moniz from Goa, likes her Saturday’s to be different. Despite being known across Goa and  being busy with her professional courses from home, she decided to give a masterclass to the Special kids once a week.

Fatima Moniz turns up at the working kitchen of Daddy’s Home Special School at Gogol, for a weekly cooking class. The students at the working kitchen mostly have learning disabilities or are born with dyslexia, autism and Down syndrome. But nothing deters Fatima to turn up every week for a masterclass with the children and special adults.

“I have to decide something that will excite them, keep up their attention and enthusiasm, make it easy and something they will enjoy eating. Last week, it was a chocolate pudding,” explains Fatima while she’s busy giving instructions and the children are working their way to beef lasagna.

While Fatima overlooks the children grounding the pepper, grating the nutmeg and stirring the white sauce and then plating the sheets of lasagna and beef, she reminds us how she quit her career as a microbiologist as she wanted to care my her children.

“It was then that I took up to cooking and took orders and mostly it was authentic Goan food before I shifted to taking cooking classes which people are made aware about through social media and newspapers,” explained Fatima while she’s busy plating the beef and sheets of lasagna and teaching the special kids the right temperature to bake the lasagna.

“It’s very satisfying to see the curiosity and excitement on their faces. I volunteered to do this only because of the sense of satisfaction I get from teaching them and they’re also eager to learn,” says Fatima who also did a cooking masterclass with the St Joseph Convent Nun’s where she taught on how to bake a carrot cake and all this for free similar to the Working Kitchen at Daddy’s Home Special School though Fatima Moniz is most often sorted for her cooking classes.

“My cooking classes are on Saturdays and Sundays. By Wednesday of the previous week, I put out my menu and have bookings for my cooking classes, but I enjoy making time on a Saturday morning to teach the special kids and adults,” stated Fatima.