“The Language of Food is Universal” - How Plateful Cafe Provides a Space for Refugees
Local founder Iolanda spoke to us about creating an inclusive space where refugees can find support, connect with their community, and cook delicious food from their home countries – all while receiving the necessary training and skills to enter the UK hospitality industry.
Plateful Cafe Founder, Iolanda Chirico
Iolanda Chirico was still in college when she first got involved with helping refugees to navigate the unfamiliar and often daunting systems of their new countries. “I befriended them and then I helped them through their education, finding housing, registering with a GP,” she explains. “And I noticed a very big difference. I could make a difference to people’s lives, and that’s why I decided that when I graduate, I want to set up a charity group working with refugees.”
“THE PEOPLE I’M WORKING WITH, THEY HAVE BEEN FORCED TO FLEE FROM THEIR COUNTRY. THEY DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE ABOUT COMING TO THE UK,” IOLANDA SAYS. “AND I FEEL STRONGLY THAT THEY SHOULD BE GIVEN ALL THE OPPORTUNITIES THEY COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IN REBUILDING THEIR LIVES.”
Thirty years later, she’s actually founded three: Action for Refugees in Russia in 2006, the Refugee Cafe in 2016, and her latest venture, Plateful Cafe – a community organisation and cafe in Lewisham that employs local refugees, and helps to train them for careers in the hospitality sector.
It’s here that we conduct our interview; tucked into the ground floor corner of the Parkside Community Centre, the cafe is a cosy, welcoming space that seems to hum with energy, even during quieter periods. The walls are lined with beautiful paintings and prints by refugee artists, sometimes accompanied by headshots and bios which describe harrowing, dangerous journeys across Europe in unassuming Arial font.
To one side, a long table is covered in leaflets advertising local community events and ventures – free self defence classes for girls, the launch of a new foodbank – while by the large window, another is laden with handmade crafts and produce for sale: brightly woven handbags, pumpkin jam, Yemeni tea, Plateful Cafe t-shirts.
Iolanda (who is wearing one of these) leads us to a corner table adorned by a lush-looking artificial plant wall, where we can take it all in as she tells us about the role this cafe plays in the lives of the refugee staff and volunteers who pass through its doors: sometimes simply as a safe landing place in an unfamiliar land, but often as a springboard to other roles in hospitality and catering.
“The people I’m working with, they have been forced to flee from their country. They didn’t have a choice about coming to the UK,” Iolanda says. “And I feel strongly that they should be given all the opportunities they could possibly have in rebuilding their lives.”
However, after her decades of working with refugees and asylum seekers, she knows all too well that this is rarely, if ever, the case. In fact, refugees are five times more likely to be unemployed than the local population – and there are a number of reasons for this.
“First of all, there is a language barrier. Then, quite often, their qualifications are not accepted or recognized in the UK.” She explains. “They need to start all over again, even if they were a doctor in their own country. You know, often paying thousands and thousands of pounds to get a qualification again in this country. So that's another barrier.”
This was the kind of challenge that Hadis – a physiotherapist who left Iraq two and a half years ago, and now works at Plateful Cafe – encountered first-hand when she arrived in the UK. Dressed in a blue and white striped apron, with her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, she takes a brief break from the kitchen to join us at our table. “When I came to the UK, I lost my previous life in my country and it was very hard for me to start again and make my life again here,” she tells us. “Because here the language is different, culture is different – I didn't know anything about how I can make my new life here.”
She was confused about how to register her Bachelor degree to begin the process of resuming her physiotherapy career in the UK – so Iolanda stepped in to help. “I talked to Iolanda and it’s done,” she smiles. “So if they accept my Bachelor I can start my job again here.”
In the meantime, she’s throwing herself into life at Plateful Cafe, where she’s received barista training and even had the chance to get involved in the various events that Plateful runs, including a recent Iranian night and Nauru night. “It’s been a very, very good experience for me,’” she says.
However, the hurdles faced by refugees are rarely just administrative ones – and aren’t all so easily overcome. For many new arrivals, the first battle they face in their new country is coming to terms with the trauma they’ve experienced in the places they’ve just fled. “All of the families and the individuals I'm working with, they’ve experienced so much in their past lives.” Iolanda says. “They had to flee war, persecution. Without support, they cannot really forget about what has happened in their own country.”
The accompanying cultural differences can also be particularly bewildering to navigate without the help of someone who knows the ropes. “I mean, coming from a country like Lebanon or Afghanistan – the language, the culture, the religion; the way things are done is totally different.” She says, explaining that even attending an initial job interview in the UK can be fraught with unfamiliar complications: “How do you dress yourself, how do you present yourself? They've never been through that kind of process in their own country – so this is why we are trying to work together with them, to deal with some of those areas. And the main area we're dealing with here is, of course, providing them with training so they are equipped to work in the hospitality sector.”
That’s why Plateful Cafe puts all their cooks through a training program, which can last between three and four months, before they join them as paid chefs. The training covers areas such as food hygiene, using kitchen equipment, understanding allergens, acquiring the different certificates needed to work in hospitality and catering – and even learning new ways to prepare and present the foods they’ve always cooked.
“We had to teach them, in this country, chicken shawarma is served in this way, because the English person would not understand if you just put the rice in the middle and all the different things all around the rice!” Iolanda smiles. “So we had to cover all of that when we did the training in the kitchen.”
And it doesn’t stop there – Plateful now offers additional month-long barista training, and recently started branching out to provide catering for events outside of the cafe. “Conferences, birthdays, weddings as well,” Iolanda ticks them off on her fingers. “And private dining, we have done a couple of those, where we go and cook in people’s homes using their kitchens.”
So with all of her experience working with refugees – and all the different UK industries refugees could be trained to enter – why did she choose to focus on hospitality and catering?
That was a decision, Iolanda says, which was actually guided largely by the refugees themselves. “Anyone should be free to pursue whatever jobs they want to do in this country, but quite often in the past thirty years, I’ve seen that they do really like the opportunities to work with food.”
And she thinks she understands why. “The language of food is universal. It breaks down so many barriers; our food is a great way to bring people together. I mean, it’s very good to sit down and have a meal together and we forget,” she gestures around our table, towards us and back at herself, “I’m a refugee, I’m English, or whatever. Food is a great breaker of barriers.”
Based in Lewisham, Plateful Cafe is a community organisation and cafe that employs local refugees at London Living Wage, and supports them in pursuing careers in catering and hospitality by providing industry-standard training and skills workshops. By creating a space where refugees and asylum seekers can meet others from their community, build new skills, attend community events and get-togethers, and cook food from their home countries, Plateful Cafe aims to reduce the isolation and poverty often faced by a vulnerable demographic, and remove some of the barriers to employment they encounter in the UK.
Website: https://platefulcafe.co.uk/
Instagram: @platefulcafe