Curry collective: asylum seekers become chefs

An example of solidarity and inclusion, the Curry Collective offers a space where asylum seekers who have just arrived in the country can integrate into a professional environment by making food for low-income people.

It is a Friday morning in April, the soft light of spring filters through the windows of the offices of Afrique au Féminin, an organization located in the heart of Parc-Extension. This is where we meet Leonora King, project coordinator for Feminine Africa, researcher at McGill University and founder of the Parc-Ex Curry Collective (PECC), a community project that employs asylum seekers and women who have recently immigrated to Quebec as chefs.

The young woman, slender and smiling, is wearing a fuchsia pink sweater that clearly expresses her cheerful and welcoming personality.

Based in these premises, Leonora King tells us about the beginnings of the PECC, which was born in the middle of a pandemic.

The genesis

In 2020, Leonora was a community organizer for Afrique au Féminin*, a reception center where she leads online workshops. Workshops where participants passionately express their talents, their music, their dance and, above all, their recipes.

With a big smile, Léonora shares the following: “The food was popular! The women were proud to share their cooking skills. They really took themselves seriously. That's when I thought maybe they could make a job out of it if I coordinated with my friends.”

Leonora is aware of the obstacles faced by these women who have recently arrived in Canada, mostly from South Asia. “They don't speak the language and they don't necessarily have work experience. But I have noticed that they are often passionate about cooking,” she explains.

While working in a restaurant is all about delivering meals during the pandemic period, Leonora is setting up an order and delivery system between these women who love to cook and her circle of friends. “They prepared meals at home, and I was in charge of the delivery of the orders,” she summarizes.

This collaboration continues even after the reopening of restaurants following the lifting of health restrictions. Rather than putting an end to this initiative, which is booming thanks to word of mouth, the Curry Collective finally moved to the kitchens of Sun Youth in 2023. There, the women, who are now chefs, meet several times a week to prepare orders. Leonora's role has not changed; she comes to pick up the dishes at the end of the afternoon to deliver them to customers.

What was originally a temporary initiative to help asylum seekers has now lasted for three years, explains Leonora: “I was thinking of organizing rotations to help other women, but in the end, their number is constantly increasing.” The condition for these rotations is simple: female chefs must give up their seats at most six months after obtaining their permanent residence in order to allow other women to take over the collective. from Curry.

“We started at six, we are now nine and we have a waiting list made up of several interested women,” reveals the young woman in a sullen tone, aware that she will not be able to help other women anytime soon, due to the delays in obtaining permanent residence. She continues: “But I don't have the heart to ask them to leave. They became my mothers, my aunts, my sisters,” she tells us, clasping her two hands over her heart.

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The chefs of the Curry Collective

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In the Jeunesse au Soleil kitchens, located just a 10-minute walk from the offices of Afrique au Féminin, we meet Naila, Parveen, Kamal, Deepali and Promila, the five chefs of the day.

These five women all started this journey with Leonora four years ago. Since then, they have never left their post as head, still waiting for their permanent residence.

It is 11 am, and since 8 am, these women have been busy on the premises preparing a variety of dishes for an order of more than 200 people. The air is full of delights, while the women, concentrated, get busy with their work.

They communicate in Hindi, naturally understanding each other that way. Naila, who is most at ease in English, explains with enthusiasm: “What motivates us is to work together and to share food.”

When Kamal arrives around noon, the warm hugs multiply. “She's a chef too,” says Naila with a knowing smile.

“We are chefs because we have always cooked at home, it is a passion that we master perfectly,” says Deepali before kissing Kamal in turn, then continuing to cook Indian pancakes.

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“Without the Curry Collective, we would still be unemployed”

In the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, Naila is busy cutting vegetables to accompany the spicy rice and chicken she has already prepared, while answering our questions. A striking detail emerges from her answers and confirms Leonora's words: Naila, like all the active women around her, has never worked before.

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“I got married 10 years ago and have never worked anywhere but at home as a housewife,” she says. At the beginning of 2020, while pregnant with her second daughter, Naila left her first host country, Saudi Arabia, with her husband and her eldest daughter. Their objective is clear: to offer their daughters a different future, a future where they can choose their own career path.

“If it weren't for the Curry Collective, we would all still be unemployed,” says Naila, as the other leaders nod in agreement, recognizing how lucky they were to have taken advantage of this opportunity.

Here, within the Curry Collective, their culinary skills are recognized, the language barrier is non-existent, and it is possible to reconcile work and family life.

Each works fairly between 5 and 15 hours per week, an ideal compromise for them. Naila goes on: “It's not a lot, but we're happy because most of us have young children. Working all day is not possible for us. But if we had more orders, we would be just as happy, because I know that we could organize ourselves.”

Naila adds that she can now drop off her two daughters aged seven and four at school, go to work, and then pick them up before the end of the day, which was not the case less than a year ago. “Again last year, we did not have access to subsidized daycare, which made it impossible to find a job,” she explains.

Parveen, 71, is the oldest member of the group. Affectionately called “grandmother”, she shows remarkable manual dexterity. In the space of three hours, she managed to make a hundred Maggi Balls — fried potato balls — and is now kneading the dough for the pancakes Deepali is baking. Naila interprets Parveen: “At my age, without the Curry Collective, it would have been impossible to find any job.”

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Towards international cuisine

Parc-Extension is an emblematic place of South Asian culture. Moreover, the women of the Curry Collective are mainly of Indian and Pakistani origin. However, Leonora plans to open the kitchens to women from other regions of the world.

She explains: “There are asylum seekers from different origins who need work. I think it is a wealth to taste dishes cooked by women from these countries, who master authentic recipes and can share them with others. We could consider Mexican, Togolese or other dishes from around the world...” She evokes this possibility with a touch of reverie, before adding: “But it will depend on our financial resources... At the moment, we don't have the resources to hire more women,” she concludes with an awkward smile.

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To go further

*Afrique au Féminin: Originally created in 1986 to support immigrant women of African origin, Afrique au Féminin expanded its action to welcome women of all origins when it obtained offices in the Parc-Extension district of Montreal in 1990, a sector where the South Asian population is the majority.