Many things drew Ana Hernandez to the Havenly fellowship program: She would be one of 15 women, immigrants and refugees from around the world, who would receive culinary training, and would help run the Havenly Cafe. She would earn money while working and as she learned, taking classes in English, digital and financial literacy. What she hadn’t expected to discover was a sisterhood.

Camila Guiza-Chavez asked a roomful of women — mostly refugees, many facing housing insecurity — if anyone had applied for the city’s new federally funded, pandemic-era housing assistance programs. 

“No,” was the unanimous reply. 

Then she asked if anyone in the room had even heard of these programs. She was met again with a resounding: ​“No.”

Entisar Elamin was chopping parsley Monday for a batch of baba ganoush when a parade of official visitors popped in with their own recipe — for helping other women like her make it in the Connecticut economy.

Elamin, a refugee from Sudan, was at work in the kitchen of Havenly Treats within the cavernous strip of storefronts across from Criterion Cinemas on Temple Street.

“Each time we come feeling more strong in calling this a political failure,” said Camila Guiza-Chavez, an organizer with the Sisters in Diaspora Collective, a group of local immigrant and refugee women that has called on the city to spend $62.5 million in ARPA aid on housing programs.

Since the light has shone brightly through one open door after another, the dynamic duo has welcomed dozens of other refugee and immigrant women. The café stands out so uniquely because of their integrative and inspiring atmosphere. Any and all new hires grow into the diverse,Havenlyfamily through their six-week fellowship program that has drastically evolved since their first fellowship.

In the Baghdad Bowl, Nieda Abbas channels the flavors of her first home country with curried chicken, rice, peas, carrots and almonds sliced whisper thin. In the Sakarya Bowl, she adds roasted beef meatballs, a fragrant tomato sauce, and a lemony, green tabbouleh from her years as a refugee in Turkey.

Camila Guiza-Chavez, an organizer with the Sisters in Diaspora Collective and a co-director of the local immigrant and refugee job training program Havenly, offered her proposal.

“Our proposal is to spend $62.5 million of American Rescue Plan funding on making a meaningful, serious effort to confront the housing crisis that we have in New Haven,” she said.

[Nieda] oversees job training in the kitchen and teaches fellow refugee and immigrant women how to cook. [...] When asked about the connection between cooking and advocacy, Abbas paused and said, “they say in my country: don’t sleep if your neighbor is hungry.”

"Havenly’s mission looks beyond the traditional model of refugee resettlement, offering refugee women a six-month paid fellowship. Cohorts of women work at the community café on Temple Street while attending classes ranging from finance to English to civic education."

Fifty people gathered on the front steps of City Hall to call for New Haven to allocate a majority of the $115 million it received in federal Covid relief funding toward affordable housing.

The rally was organized by the Sisters In Diaspora Collective, a recently-formed group of immigrant and refugee women activists affiliated with the local restaurant and job training center Havenly Treats.

"But Ms. Abbas, 44, is working to help. Every morning, she cooks for Havenly [Treats] a nonprofit organization that helps refugee chefs sell food. Drawing from her work as a baker in Iraq, she cooks about 200 meals for people in need. She makes fatayer with cheese and za’atar, elegant cucumber salads with spices, and homemade sauce."

Catering Passoni, Co-Founder and Co-Director of Havenly, goes beyond job training and placement to build community and collective power among refugee and migrant women.