Meet the gastronomic initiative that is changing the lives of many migrant women

One way to integrate into a community is through the preparation and tasting of its typical dishes. Here is a story and three social innovation projects that help migrant women settle in their new country through culinary training.

Four years ago in Temuco, in southern Chile, a program was created that has caused notoriety in the city. This is the course
Chilean cuisine for immigrants
developed by the
Instituto Superior de Especialidades Técnicas de Temuco (ISETT), which teaches Chilean
(ISETT), which teaches Chilean gastronomy recipes to migrants.

Although the course is free and open to all, the majority of participants have been migrant women from Haiti, Venezuela and Colombia. In an annual program of eight sessions, participants are taught to cook Creole recipes, such as porotos con rienda, pastel de choclo, mote con huesillo or semolina con leche.

The idea of the program is for participants to learn to cook hot and cold dishes to prepare them at home and to apply for jobs in kitchens or domestic work. This, in addition to promoting the integration of migrants in their new country.

The course is taught by a specialist in international gastronomy, has certification in basic Chilean cuisine for those who complete it and, at the end of each session, participants can take the food home. In addition, ISETT provides all the ingredients and implements for cooking.

The importance of the kitchen

This initiative has meant a great support for the migrant women who participate, who learn to cook but also expand their palate with local flavors and acquire such a fundamental knowledge in the culture of a country as its gastronomy. In turn, these new skills are an incentive to start one’s own business.

Other projects of gastronomic social innovation include
Microentrepreneurs: food for all
an initiative
accelerated by Hola América in 2021
which helps women in four Latin American countries to increase their income through education, training and coaching in cooking.
Santiago Cocina, meanwhile, is a socioeconomic insertion program supported by UNHCR, which took place in 2022 in the Chilean capital
and which took place in 2022 in the Chilean capital.