"A friend and I were both working in restaurants, and we were just meeting a lot of young people from refugee backgrounds who were wanting to work but couldn't get their foot in the door," Scarf co-founder Hannah Brennan tells CBD News.
So Brennan started the nonprofit that's "transforming lives through hospitality since 2010, empowering young people from asylum seeker, refugee, and migrant backgrounds with practical training, mentoring, and paid work experience in Melbourne restaurants."
And she didn't stop there.
After struggling to find work in the restaurant industry, Brennan saw a gap in the market.
"I could just see that vicious cycle; you can't get experience if you don't have a job, but you can't get a job without experience," she says.
So she teamed up with a chef to create Scarf's 10-week seasonal course, which gives refugees and migrants work experience in some of Melbourne's top restaurants.
"The trainees are really taking the lead and getting that important opportunity to put some of these newfound skills into practice, dealing with all the ins and outs of a busy dinner servicecommunicating with chefs, communicating with one another, and fostering that teamwork as well," Brennan says.
Scarf works with more than 350
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