Two years ago, Ali Fayazi had never had a crater of coffee. Now, as cafeteria manager for 1951 Coffee Company, he has during slightest one crater a day.
At a David Brower Center on Friday night, Fayazi explained to an assembly of some-more than 100 people how he had come to a United States dual years ago as a interloper from Afghanistan looking for a job. A box workman put him in hold with 1951 Coffee Company’s barista training program for refugees — a module attendees were assisting lift income for 1951 Coffee Company’s annual Stand with Refugees advantage event.
The advantage event’s idea was to lift $5,000 for a coffee company’s training program, that costs $150,000 to run.
“It’s not inexpensive to put someone by it,” 1951 Coffee Company co-founder Rachel Taber pronounced of a training program. “(We place a) low series of people to a high series of trainers.”
According to 1951 Coffee co-founder Doug Hewitt, a module provides free, two-week training, during that refugees learn how to decoction coffee, use an espresso appurtenance and make a simple beverages seen during any specialty cafe.
The module also helps refugees find jobs by helping in a focus process, and it serves some-more than 100 refugees per year in a Bay Area and San Diego, Hewitt added.
“(The 1951 Coffee Company) baristas are all refugees, so we feel all a same together,” Fayazi said. “We were like a family.”
Taber and Hewitt both formerly worked during a International Rescue Committee, a resettlement group in Oakland, where Taber pronounced they “both had unequivocally insinuate practice with extraordinary refugees who couldn’t find good jobs on arrival.”
The co-founders’ response was a market-based solution: 1951 Coffee Company, a coffee classification that provides refugees with barista training as good as a cafeteria on Channing Way that only employs refugees. It non-stop 5 days before a proclamation of President Donald Trump’s transport ban restricting refugees from entrance into a country.
Jason Reed Miller, operations manager during Mazarine Coffee in San Francisco who attended a advantage eventuality Friday, pronounced he connected with Hewitt and Taber during a coffee carnival in Atlanta a year ago. Since then, he has employed dual 1951 Coffee Company training module graduates.
“(I’m) unequivocally unapproachable to have 1951 Coffee in a community,” Miller pronounced during a event. “(It’s) such a good instance of an classification that helps people so much. It’s extraordinary that it’s here (and) active in a community.”
Rawaa Kasedah, owners of Old Damascus Fare — a family-run catering business in Oakland that serves normal Syrian food — baked a food for a event. Kasedah, a Syrian refugee, opened Old Damascus Fare after resettling with her family to Oakland from Damascus, Syria.
“It’s wonderful, generally in this anti-immigrant meridian — it’s so lovely to find a whole island of being kind to another,” pronounced advantage eventuality attendee Larry Hatfield.
Inside a Hazel Wolf Gallery of a David Brower Center, a multimedia presentation displayed photos of refugees employed during a coffee shop. A video featured Meg Karki, who worked as comparison barista during 1951 Coffee after formerly spending 20 years during a interloper camp.
Surrounding tables displayed profiles of a opposite baristas who work for 1951 Coffee. Profiles enclosed Parti, a interloper from Bhutan, who wants to possess and run his possess construction company; Peter from Kachin, who hopes to possess a business in a Bay Area; and Liebe from Eritrea, who pronounced he wants to open and possess an Eritrean grill or coffee shop.
“Refugees are tellurian beings. They have hopes, they have lives, they have dreams,” Karki pronounced in a video. “So what is a disproportion between we and me? There is no difference.”
Contact Alyssa Bernardino during [email protected] and follow her on Twitter during @alybernardino.