A Cafe With a Difference

By Danielle Pope

A Cafe With a Difference
How one local cafe is helping change the lives of refugees while also enriching the community

Nestled amongst the stores of Sydney’s Newtown is Parliament on King, a café run by Ravi Prasad and his wife Della, offering hospitality training for refugees and asylum seekers. Born a first-generation Australian to an Indian father from Fiji and an English mother, Ravi says his family experienced a lot of racism when he was growing up. The pair were motivated to open the café in 2013 upon the birth of their daughter. “We decided we wanted to make a difference and give our lives some deeper meaning,” Ravi says.

Ravi and Della work alongside local centres and support agencies, teaching asylum seekers and refugees skills such as coffee making, food hygiene and basic occupational health and safety.

They work in conjunction with registered training schools to give participants accredited documents that will help them find work. “We have a really strong vocational outcome as a result of our program,” explains Ravi. He says the key outcome of initiatives such as Parliament is the soft social outcome of creating a sense of hope and purpose for participants. parliamentonking.com

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Print Recipe

BECOME A MiNDFOOD SUBSCRIBER TODAY

Let us keep you up to date with our weekly MiNDFOOD e-newsletters which include the weekly menu plan, health and news updates or tempt your taste buds with the MiNDFOOD Daily Recipe. 

Member Login