Scarborough restaurant targeted by racist trolls set to close
But the owner says she wants to keep raising awareness of racism
A Scarborough restaurant targeted by vandals, in what's believed to be a racist attack, is set to close.
Earlier this year the front window of Big Maya's Jerk was smashed.
Owner Maya Mihoc believes it was racially motivated attack after getting a string of abusive messages online. She says it's taken a huge toll on her mental health and financial pressure means she's decided to close: "We had so many issues from you know, the harassment to the issues with electricity and it just caused so much stress I've decided to essentially close the business and take a step back and look after my health"
"Yes it was challenging, yes it really put me in a bad space, especially my mental health but ultimately, I rise."
Maya now plans to open a catering business as well as continue to raise awareness of racism in the local area:
"We've been contacted by a couple of schools and we're going creating more workshops of awareness around culture diversity so that's literally what my next steps are."
"I will talk to them about diversity, about culture so we want to make it fun and interactive, we want to talk about history, cook and eat some food and dance, it's all going to be about food, music and history."
"Being Nigerian, Caribbean and growing up in Italy, kids are always fascinated that I have such an intense mix so I think the goal is for them to understand that migration is normal, we all come from different parts of the world and just make it really fun."