Making Granola Helps Refugees Learn Job Skills and Find Community

 

Nice News - For most, granola is simply a snack, enjoyed atop a morning bowl of yogurt or when the midday munchies hit. For refugees working with Beautiful Day, though, it’s a pathway to a better life. By teaching these individuals to make and package granola, the Rhode Island-based nonprofit helps equip them with the skills they need to find steady employment.
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Eighty million people are displaced worldwide, according to Beautiful Day. Many U.S. refugees face significant challenges integrating into civilian life: minimal transferable skills, potential trauma from their home countries, and the inability to speak English well.
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Through its Kitchen/Production Program, Beautiful Day pays adults to work in its Providence kitchen for four months, preparing and packaging granola as well as other specialty foods. This helps teach them English along with essential job and life skills, like confidence and teamwork, with resounding success: Over 70% of graduates have found permanent employment. Since Beautiful Day became a nonprofit in 2012, it’s trained more than 400 refugees from 14 countries.
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“Beautiful Day is not an ‘us-them’ endeavor. We’re in it together,” Executive Director Keith Cooper tells Nice News. “We’re providing job training, job skills, and an introduction to the American workplace culture. Our trainees, who are mostly recent arrivals, bring determination and grit, an eagerness to learn, and a critical need to get a job. The result is pretty fun.”