New cafe brewing skills for migrants

A newly opened social enterprise café in Campsie is helping recent migrants get a leg up on paid employment by providing skills to become job ready.

The Canterbury Community Hub café, who received $22,000 in seed funding from Canterbury League Club, offers a six week training course with topics covering hygiene, occupational health and safety, customer service, and coffee and food preparation service.

“Our management team saw a need to address the barriers to employment that some migrants and humanitarian entrants experience in the community – highlighting specifically around the lack of skills and local work experience. Many are also hesitant to undertake formal training or may lack the literacy skills to do so,” said Nadia Zeaiter, Canterbury Community Hub Coordinator.

“As a result, this café was established to fill the gaps and provide training and work experience. It will hopefully become a self-sustaining enterprise and become a pathway to other employment and/or further studies and training.”

The traineeship takes on two or three participants at each time to ensure everyone receives comprehensive training and has a detailed understanding of each module. Participants have so far primarily been members from the Canterbury Community Hub group but traineeships are available to the public based on criteria.

“We are hoping to liaise with other organisations that recruit with similar selection criteria which offer next level support and training for those who would like to undergo further training,” said Zeaiter.

“Aside from gaining valuable real-world work experience, participants get a chance to meet other people and expand on their social network which has just as much benefit as learning skills to become job ready. Having a support structure of new friends and colleagues will help migrants transition easier to life in a new country and community,” said Dave Brace, CEO of Canterbury League Club.