Cookin’Hope Workshop – Discussing the Professional Integration of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the Gastronomy Sector

This one-day workshop, which took place in February, was a great success, bringing together stakeholders from refugee and asylum organisations, policy makers and business. It led to the establishment of a network that is going to push the agenda and the objectives of the workshop forward. This is to ensure continued sustainable professional integration of refugees and asylum seekers in the German labour market while helping to overcome the skilled labour shortage in Germany*, leading to a win-win situation for all.

The gastronomy sector can play a key role in the sustainable professional integration of refugees and asylum seekers if a number of challenges are met and potential barriers are overcome. These include restrictions through their asylum status, recognition of their professional qualifications and work experience. To explore opportunities that can lead to a win-win situation for all, the CSCP, CookinHope and DEHOGA organised a one-day workshop at the Stadthalle Wuppertal, bringing together stakeholders and facilitating dialogue.

In an insightful panel discussion on the barriers facing the employment of refugee and asylum seekers with Jassem Okla and team (Weiße Herzen), Isabel Hausmann (Managing director, DEHOGA Nordrhein Neuss stv), Inge Riße (Ausbildungsberatung Geflüchtete) and Marie Haus (Villa Media), we explored concrete examples of challenges faced by stakeholders. The role of learning German and the opportunities to do so was a major concern of all panelists. In his comprehensive key note, Dr. Andreas Kletzander, Board Member for Labour Market and Communication at Job Center Wuppertal emphasized the wide range of measures and initiatives for integration into the labour market that Wuppertal offers. Examples are the Haus der Integration, “house of integration”, which hosts all integration services that the City of Wuppertal offers under one roof, and the Bergisches Netzwerk zur Arbeitsmarktintegration von Neuzugewanderten, “ Network for the Labour Market Integration of Newly Immigrated Persons”.

The Cookin’Hope workshop participants were also treated to a wide range of best practices. These included Cookin Hope, the learning restaurant for refugees in Wuppertal, HUkultur,,catering services offered by women refugees and asylum seekers in Bochum, the story of Ahmad Daoud, a refugee who started as a volunteer for different initiatives and is soon opening his own restaurant in Wuppertal, and many more. These showed the wide range of successful initiatives implemented in various places to professionally integrate refugees and asylum seekers. They also shared their key learnings with the participants.

In parallel workshops, partipants brainstormed new instruments needed to promote the professinal integration of refugees and asylum seekers, such as market-based instruments, which lead to a win-win situation for employers (the gastronomy sector) and employees (refugees and asylum seekers); foundation and qualification instruments – a joint learning and development process; the role of voluntary work and its limits. One market-based instrument that was developed was the use of labelling to recognise the restaurants and hotels that participate in the integration of refugees. Such a label would serve as a special recognition as well as a marketing tool for the restaurants and hotels.

For further questions, please contact Joshua Aseto.