Newcomer Kitchen: How Syrian refugee women are cooking their way to success | DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University
February 21, 2017 /in Newcomer Kitchen /by lensenater
Newcomer Kitchen: How Syrian refugee women are cooking their way to success
Leah Rosenthal, Advancement Officer | Hamilton | February 21, 2017 | DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University
Imagine packing up only what you can carry. Imagine fleeing a war-torn country and landing as a refugee in Canada.
Now picture a kitchen. The different smells, the cacophony of sounds. There is laughter, there is sharing, there community in this kitchen. There is healing.
Newcomer Kitchen invites Syrian refugee women to cook a weekly meal and socialize. The meals are then sold, and the proceeds shared among the cooks. Currently there are 59 women enrolled in the program.
The initiative, which began at The Depannuer in Toronto, is working to create a model that can be replicated with any newcomer group, in any restaurant, in any city in the world. What began as a safe space for women to cook and prepare meals for their families – many of whom were living in hotel rooms without access to a full kitchen – has now transitioned into a way for those women to make money.
Newcomer Kitchen has already been covered by Time and the Huffington Post, and the relatively new start-up had the pleasure of hosting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he broke bread with several Syrian newcomers on the first anniversary of their arrival in Canada. With a second Toronto location opening in May 2017, Newcomer Kitchen has big hopes for what it can accomplish in the near future.
https://thedepanneur.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Newcomer-kitchen-McMaster-University-.jpg 527 1202 lensenater https://thedepanneur.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/TheDep_SM.png lensenater2017-02-21 15:04:022017-03-08 15:16:54Newcomer Kitchen: How Syrian refugee women are cooking their way to success | DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University
How Syrian Refugee Women Are Using Food to Fight President Trump | TIME
February 14, 2017 /in Featured NK, Newcomer Kitchen /by lensenater
How Syrian Refugee Women Are Using Food to Fight President Trump
Mahita Gajanan | Feb 14, 2017 | TIME Magazine
"We want to celebrate that they hold the ancient knowledge of one of the oldest cuisines in the world," co-founder Cara Benjamin-Pace said. "Our goal is not to train these women into line workers in the food industry. Our goal is to bring them together and celebrate them as women and in the community."
Dyana Aljizawi had spent three days cooking more than two dozen traditional Syrian dishes — rice pilaf, hummus, salad, baba ganoush, roast chicken legs and more — and she was exhausted.
It was a busy night for the 20-year-old refugee from Syria, who was the center of attention at a gathering of the Syria Supper Club, a group dedicated to welcoming refugees through meals.
Aljizawi is one of many refugee women from Syria who have connected with their new homes and earned money by cooking and sharing traditional food with neighbors in the U.S. and Canada. Through the Syria Supper Club, the women profit from making buffet-style dinners for the specific cause of pushing back against Islamophobia and xenophobia which they say was exacerbated by President Donald Trump's election.
"I'm afraid to go outside because, with the current political climate and Trump, I'm afraid we'll be sent home, back to a war zone," Aljizawi, who now lives in New Jersey with her husband, said. "The U.S. is very nice, it's very beautiful, but we've gone through a lot of pain here."
https://thedepanneur.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/syrian-refugee-women-newcomer-kitchen.jpg 800 800 lensenater https://thedepanneur.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/TheDep_SM.png lensenater2017-02-14 17:34:072017-03-08 18:27:13How Syrian Refugee Women Are Using Food to Fight President Trump | TIME