Australia’s first social enterprise bakery, The Bread & Butter Project, has graduated its latest group of bakers, with its largest ever cohort marking the program’s 100th graduate.
Bread & Butter was founded in 2013 to provide refugees and asylum seekers with training and employment pathways. Trainees receive English and numeracy tutoring, TAFE accreditation, on-the-job training and job readiness support through a six-month traineeship program, and have come from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Mongolia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea.
When Covid first hit in 2020, Bread & Butter worked with Woolworths to pivot its business from a wholesale operation to supplying 14 Woolworths Metro stores in Sydney. The partnership evolved in November, where the bakery opened its first retail concession store in the Erskineville Woolworths Metro Park store, with 100 per cent of all profits generated going towards its programs.
Many who pass through the program have escaped an environment of political upheaval and conflict in their respective homelands, in the process leaving behind family, friends and diverse careers and backgrounds for a new country and a safer life.
Held on 20 November at the Surry Hills headquarters of long-time corporate supporter Canva, the 2024 ceremony acknowledged 26 new graduates accredited as bakers. The event saw the trainees receive their TAFE certification and baker’s caps in front of a crowd of over 150 of The Bread & Butter Project’s staff, volunteers, donors, partners and family members.
One of the 2024 trainees was Haseebullah Shadaab, a 27-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, and the program’s 100th graduate.
Shadaab grew up in Afghanistan, however when the Taliban took over the country in the 1990s, his family escaped to Pakistan.
“Our family stayed in Pakistan for 10 years, and we only returned home to Afghanistan when it was safe again, once a new government came into power and the Taliban left,” said Shadaab.
“However, the Taliban returned a few years ago and separated us from our family. We had a big family, all living together, and when the Taliban came back, we had to escape to wherever we could go.”
Two of his brothers were offered safe passage to the United States with their families, while Shadaab and two other brothers had the chance to find refuge in Australia. His two sisters remain in Afghanistan in the hope they can one day join their other family members.
Shadaab arrived in Australia three years ago, and now lives with his brothers in Sydney. He was introduced to The Bread & Butter Project through his brother Kashif, who joined the program a month prior to him.
As a trainee, Haseebullah received hands-on training in the company’s Marrickville bakery and a TAFE Certificate II in Baking, as well as intensive English language tutoring.
The Bread & Butter Project CEO, Eva Rabanal, said the program assists the newly professional artisan bakers to find employment in Australia's hospitality industry, following the successful completion of their traineeship.
“The best way to prevent social isolation, create opportunity and alleviate poverty for refugees in Australia is through steady employment,” said Rabanal.
“A secure job helps our graduates build a sense of belonging in the Australian community, on top of their new-found English and baking skills. We’re proud of the fact that since we commenced in 2013, almost all our baker graduates are sustainably employed and have been able to discontinue welfare support.
“Following the graduation of our latest and largest cohort, we are now actively working to help our graduates find gainful employment, and we ask any bakeries or hospitality businesses seeking highly motivated and professional bakers to contact us, so that we can assist them in securing suitable roles,” she said.
