The celebrity chef taking part in an event to empower Manitoba's Indigenous youth

Celebrity Chef Roger Mooking is cooking up inspiration in Winnipeg this weekend at an event aimed to empower Indigenous youth through food, art and crafts.

The event, a collaboration between the Four Arrows Regional Health Authority and the National Reconciliation Program at Save the Children, brings together 24 young people for the Kewaywin Youth Empowerment Retreat.

It gives the youth a chance to participate in three workshops, including one where Mooking will help them explore their cultural cuisine through the art of cooking with fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

Mooking, who is a Save the Children ambassador, said the event gives the kids a chance to get out of their communities and learn new things.

“We’re teaching them cooking and culinary stuff. We’re also teaching arts and crafts,” he said in an interview with CTV Morning Live on Friday.

“So it’s mirroring all those things of all those worlds I do and bringing them in conjunction with the National Reconciliation Program and Save the Children, supporting what Four Arrows does on the ground here every day."

At the event, Mooking will get the youth to cook with a wide variety of ingredients, including pickerel, sage and blueberries.

“We’re actually using what’s from Mother Earth, it’s incredible,” he said.

Save the Children is a charity that works to give kids a healthy start in life and the opportunity to learn. It also helps protect kids from harm.

Mooking said he’s been working with organization for over a decade, adding that he’s even travelled with them to Bangladesh.

“Now we’re here in Winnipeg doing this thing. It’s another layer of the newest adventure of stuff that I’m doing with them, just to bring light to the food crisis that’s happening,” he said.

At this weekend’s event, Mooking hopes the kids are able to take something away with them.

“I’m hoping to inspire them, give them some tools and some skills through crafts and art, coping, healing mechanisms,” he said.

“But also some just functional things like cooking that they can bring to the table.”

-With files from CTV’s Ainsley McPhail.