Women from refugee backgrounds face many barriers when trying to work in Germany. In Hamburg, “Chickpeace” proves that integration in the labor market is possible.
00:00These women cook their way to independence. Together, they run chickpeas, an all-female catering startup in Hamburg.
00:07I've been here for 8 years with chickpeas. Without chickpeas, it doesn't work for me. Everything is safe.
00:12In Germany, women from refugee backgrounds face huge barriers when trying to find work.
00:16From language and childcare, access to training and discrimination.
00:20How did these women overcome so many hurdles?
00:23Hey, here we are. We are not so grateful that we are now for you.
00:28No, there is so much and we will show you how it goes.
00:31At the heart of chickpeas stands Manuela Mauer, a social worker who realized that the first barrier for women arriving in Germany was isolation.
00:39To overcome this, she started cooking with them at a refugee shelter.
00:43What started as shared meals grew into something bigger.
00:46For Fadwa, once a teacher in Aleppo, chickpeas means more than just a job.
01:00Everyone pitches in, from cooking to delivery. Maida Batal, a Kurdish woman from Syria, is delivering meals to a hospice today, one of now around 1,000 customers.
01:18For this mother of two, chickpeas means community.
01:21With chickpeas, Maissa unlocked her leadership potential and now dreams of opening her own family restaurant one day.
01:32Chickpeas gave me self-sicherheit.
01:35I can do it, I can do it.
01:37And it's not wrong when someone makes mistakes.
01:40We try again.
01:41Over ten women are part of chickpeas today.
01:44Most of them are now German citizens.
01:46Soon, they'll open their own canteen and training academy.
01:49Manuela hopes that equality in Germany's job market will grow, once migrant women's potential is truly seen.
01:56I think very strongly that we need new access to our work market,
02:02how we can provide this competence to the work market.
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