After raising nine children, Muna Ali discovered a new way to keep occupied: the crispness of chicken sambousas, the spice of tabbouleh and the nutty sweetness of baklava. For years, she wanted to start a restaurant, but refugees like her, with limited education and capital, find that dream hard to realize.
Now Salt Lake County is guiding her and two other refugee women toward small business success as their fledgling catering businesses explode.
"It’s growing so fast I don’t know if I could manage it any longer," said Ze Min Xiao, the county’s refugee services liaison.
The 2-year-old Ethnic Kitchen Alliance gives the women from the Sudan, Iraq and the Congo a chance to use their well-honed cooking skills to help pay the bills.
"I [don’t] have high education to work like you," Ali said last week as she prepared lunch for a Utah Department of Health retreat.
Refugees, who are legal immigrants, arrive in Utah by the hundreds each year. Employment can sometimes be elusive. Some are illiterate in any language. Their English skills may initially be nonexistent. But the U.S. refugee program is geared toward self-sufficiency, so adults are expected to become wage earners as soon as possible.
About half of the refugees who are resettled in Utah through Catholic Community Services find work within six months. Those jobs are often in housekeeping, janitorial, laundry and similar fields. One of the county’s goals is to help refugees draw on their current skills, which for many women includes cooking delicious food.
The county takes orders for the women, helps with invoicing, marketing and scheduling while making sure the cooks have the adequate permits and facilities to prepare the food. They have to cook in a commercial grade kitchen such as the Horizonte Instruction and Training Center, not at home, and have a food handler’s permit. Salt Lake Tribune
