Food is the common language helping migrant and refugee women from around the world settle into life in Australia.
The Bake and Make program, from the western Sydney-based Community Migrant Resource Centre (CMRC), is helping women develop their language and social skills and build self-confidence.
The program also helps women find employment or start their own businesses, CMRC community development worker Faiza Shakori told SBS News.
“The whole idea is to progress [through] education, training and employment,” she said.
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“This program is open to anyone, from all backgrounds, all levels of education, as long as they come in with that passion that they want to socialise, they want to learn something and they want to give back to the community something as well.”
Miss Shakori started the program in mid-2014 and since then 57 women have participated, many of them referred through their children’s schools, like Granville South Performing Arts High School.
The school’s community liaison officer, May Jouni is an enthusiastic supporter of the program.
She said the language barrier often stopped women new to Australia from getting out, improving their English and gaining employment.
“Food…is another language-type of communication between us,” she told SBS News.
“We can learn literacy, numeracy, connection skills, having friends, develop our social skills and empower the ladies.”
“Some of them, they cannot speak loudly, they cannot say what is inside them. If they can have any skills - like cooking, baking, [or] their own business from home - they can stand up on their feet in the future and say, ‘Look, I’m a lady, I have the right to continue my education and to continue whatever I want’.
'While you’re learning this you get to know different kinds of cultures, you get to know each other and you become friends.'
“I think food is the common language between all the cultures. At the end we are all one family.”
While many women start off in the CMRC’s baking course, there are also food hygiene, business and other courses designed to improve their futures.
Turkish migrant Rahime Tetik came to Australia in 1975, and the combination of three children and a new language meant she was not able to follow her dreams.
Now she is set to open her first business, selling Turkish food on the central coast.
“I want to cook Turkish food plus what I learned here as well,” Mrs Tetik said.
“While you’re learning this you get to know different kinds of cultures, you get to know each other and you become friends.
“You teach what you know to them and they teach you their culture.”
Other women have their eyes set on starting their own businesses or improving their skills thanks to the program.
Sri Lankan refugee Subha Selvakumar arrived in Australia in 2012 by boat and has taken part in the CMRC’s business courses.
She intends to set up a video business for events like weddings.
Australian-born Kylie Luysterburg also took the business course and hopes to use her new-found knowledge to help her husband and son set up their own businesses.
Miss Shakori said the change the program wrought in the women was “significant”.
“Their transformation is dramatic,” she said. “I have photos from when they first start and photos from when they finish the course. Their smile, their confidence – it’s so visible.
“It is such a motivation for me to do more. I am a refugee myself from Afghanistan and I came to Australia and I could not speak one word of English and I struggled a lot in learn and gaining employment.
“It is a passion for me to be able to give back to the community, as well as to see the ladies and to give support to them to pursue their dreams.”
The program will continue next year and Miss Shakori said the CMRC hoped to be able to open a café in the future where graduates from the program could work and continue to improve their skills.
