BUILDING SKILLS, CONFIDENCE
In Ready for American Hospitality program, DU students train refugees in food safety, serving, workforce culture
It was showtime Thursday night for the 14 refugees hustling around an industrial kitchen inside a University of Denver banquet hall, spreading goat cheese atop crostinis, scooping ice into water glasses and perfecting the plating of a charred okra salad.
The refugees — new to the U.S. from places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo and Turkmenistan — worked alongside their DU hospitality management student mentors, who had spent the past five weeks training their newly arrived friends in food safety and U.S. workforce culture through the university’s Ready for American Hospitality program.
Thursday night was the culmination of their learning, a fine dining experience at DU’S Joy Burns Center that refugees and their college counterparts put on for more than 120 people.
The one-of-a-kind program provides learning on a deeper level for all involved, said Cheri Young, associate professor at DU’S Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management. Students in her course on human capital act as mentors to the refugees.
The DU students are tasked with interviewing, training and managing the refugees, who are referred to the program through the Denver-based African Community Center.
The refugees learn the basics of food safety, food preparation, cooking skills and U.S. restaurant culture in an environment where they’re able to practice English, forge friendships and get job offers post-program.
“This is my dream come true,” said Pamela Bukuru, 33, who fled Congo and came to Colorado from a refugee camp in Zambia.
In many cases, the refugees already know the true meaning of hospitality, Young said.
As part of the course, the DU students visit their refugee mentees — who aren’t students at the university — in their new homes.
The DU students take public transportation there to better understand the obstacles and life experiences their mentees are going through.
Most refugees in early resettlement start in humble beginnings, Young said, and her students are continually awed when the mentees and their families offer up their only silverware to eat dinner or provide their only chair while choosing to stand.
“That is true hospitality,” Young said. “That’s a hospitality most of my DU students would never have otherwise experienced. This program gets them out of their own heads. They can get so obsessed with their own life and a big paper they have due, but this opens up their whole world. They start learning about countries they’ve never heard of. They start caring about world politics and are invested in these people’s lives. The refugees talk about how our students are their first American friends.”
DU student Anahi Mendivil, 20, is studying hospitality management to learn how to ensure workers are treated fairly, she said. Her favorite part of working with the refugees is hearing their stories on the first day and feeling invigorated by their resilience.
On Thursday night, she helped set the dining tables alongside her mentees before guests arrived.
“What I enjoy is making connections,” Mendivil said.
“We’re training them, and then we’re working alongside them and giving them encouragement. For me, they are an inspiration.”
Although the program — established in 2012 — feels good, it also garners results. Representatives from the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and Refugee Council USA recognized Ready for American Hospitality as a crucial resource for resettled refugees, DU officials said.
Once they’ve completed the program, 86% of the Ready for American Hospitality students over the years gained employment and 90% meet a 90-day job retention rate at that first job, according to DU.
Those first jobs out of the hospitality program can be a stepping stone for bigger dreams.