Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Lavanya Mahate launched RISE Culinary Institute last year to support immigrant and refugee women now living in Utah.
- The nonprofit organization offers free three-month culinary classes meant to train and empower participants.
- Mahate, who helped launch a successful chain of Salt Lake-area Indian restaurants, says she could use donations and volunteers to expand the organization.
SALT LAKE CITY — Lavanya Mahate is on a mission after having come from a patriarchal society and being familiar with the challenges that immigrant and refugee women face upon coming to the United States.
"I want to give back to women who are immigrants, who are new, who are refugees," she said. "I feel like there's such untapped potential in that segment."
To that end, she formed RISE Culinary Institute last year to give back after nearly 15 years running a string of successful Indian restaurants in the Salt Lake area, Saffron Valley. So far, the nonprofit organization has helped around 40 women from an array of countries — Ukraine, Colombia, Sudan, Afghanistan and more — and she plans to keep it up.
The next free, three-month class is to start early next year, and Mahate dreams of expanding the organization and mustering more help and donors.
"Funding is definitely an issue for us. Right now, it's just (a) chef instructor and myself running the whole program, where it would be nice to have one or two team members to help us write grants or to help us market, to help with event planning and all of the things," she said.
Volunteers who can help with kitchen instruction and administrative functions would also be welcome.
Indeed, she's passionate about RISE and believes it serves a vital purpose — helping women who are new to the country survive and thrive. As an immigrant from India who faced her own adjustment after coming to Utah in 2001, she knows the struggles female immigrants and refugees go through.
"I see all different kinds of women, but overall, these are women who have gone through a lot of suppression, oppression, war, persecution, fleeing — all the things that (are) really traumatizing to any human being," Mahate said.
That said, her goal with RISE is to get the women to look forward, to improve their lot, not to dwell on the past.
"We do not think of one person's pain as greater than the other's. We're here all sharing our skills, our time, our energy to help ourselves grow and learn and evolve. We're not so much looking back, but we're looking forward," Mahate said. "They're lovely women. They're resilient."
Helping women 'live their full potential'
Around 10 women take part in each cohort, attending classes at the RISE facility adjacent to the Saffron Valley in Sugar House. During the three-month sessions, five-hour classes are held Monday-Friday. The primary focus is to prepare the participants, who typically come from lower-income backgrounds, for jobs in the food industry.
"They all love food, and food is, I think, such an easy point of entry for them to come out of that shell ... and to integrate in the community, because they're all proud of their food and their culture and their countries. Food is a good way to express all of that," Mahate said.
The women get French classical kitchen training — how to properly use knives, make sauces and more — and learn proper kitchen hygiene. "They get their food-handlers card and they learn how to prepare food in a kitchen in America, because it's very different from the countries they come from," she said.
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Multicultural Utah
Looking for more news about the different cultures that call Utah home? Visit our Multicultural Utah section for more stories, events and features.The instruction, though, goes further. Participants learn interview skills to help them land jobs in the food industry and develop close bonds with one another. Mahate hopes they also develop a sense of self-confidence and self-reliance so "they can actually create a better future for themselves, their kids, and eventually give back to the community."
She's faced her own travails, Mahate said. But she looks back on her days in India when she was learning how to cook from the women in her family as inspiration for her efforts with RISE.
"They were strong, they were kind, they were confident, silently confident, just getting everything done," she said. Now, having faced her own challenges, having been involved with several women's organizations in the Salt Lake City area, "I feel like my main purpose is to help women live their full potential."
