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Job training for immigrants
FOX 5 NY's Linda Schmidt has the story.
NEW YORK CITY - Using food as a tool for success, new immigrants to NYC are hoping to one day achieve the American dream.
A nonprofit called Careers through Culinary Arts Programs, which is known as C-CAP, launched a pilot program to teach immigrants food preparation and cooking.
The nonprofit is working with restaurants and hotels in the city that will eventually give the immigrants jobs.
The nonprofit will train around 50 immigrants, between now and July, to work in the food service industry.
Vicky Espinoza Lopez is one of the immigrants, having arrived in the United States through a humanitarian program, leaving her law degree behind in Nicaragua. She's now living with her aunt in Queens and learning to cook.
Through a translator, she told FOX 5 NY that being able to advance in a law career is difficult in Nicaragua, and wanted to see what opportunities were open to her in the U.S.
Thanks to a grant from the state, the nonprofit will be training about 50 immigrants, between now and July, to work in the food service industry.
"Usually the path would be to go in and be a dishwasher, but our students are going in as entry-level cooks, so that's already way up the chain, and so they are able to get these career-accelerating jobs," said Tanya Steel, executive director of C-CAP.
C-CAP launched the pilot program to teach immigrants food preparation and cooking.
C-CAP has been training middle and high school students all across the country how to cook for over 30 years as a pathway to jobs and college. Now, they want to expand the program.
"I really want to scale this up, so we can teach more asylum seekers to get them into jobs," Steel said.
Business leaders say, currently, there are about 10,000 restaurant jobs open in the city, and giving migrants working papers could fill in the gap.
"In New York City now, we have almost 30,000 people who have applications in process. So, we have a pipeline of people," said Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of Partnership for NYC.
They are hoping the program will extend beyond the summer.