47 - Melbourne46 - Melbourne

Long Street Coffee is a place where barriers are broken, then broken again. You would never know that last year, when Jane and Francois Marx opened a cafe with stark white walls and strategically placed small plants in the quiet and diverse inner-city suburb of Richmond, they would staff it with young asylum seekers and refugees. According to the Refugee Council of Australia, In 2015 and 2016 alone, the Australian Government granted 17,555 refugee and humanitarian visas, many of which were allotted to at-risk women, as well as people displaced by conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Jane first came into contact with Melbourne’s refugee communities while teaching English to women living in government-assisted housing. At the same time, Francois was teaching coffee-making skills at the not-for-profit cafe The Social Studio in Collingwood. The couple repeatedly heard stories about the struggles that refugees and asylum-seekers faced in finding employment. In many cases, they were turned away due to a lack of experience. This inspired Jane and Francois to open a cafe with the express purpose of offering opportunity and support to those in need. “Cultural diversity is a vital part of Australia’s national identity, and I

With Open ArmsWORDS Anastasia PrikhodkoPHOTOGRAPHS Daniela Velasco

believe it’s one of this country’s greatest strengths,” says Jane. “Yet we have a very real problem with racism here and that lies at the heart of much of the hostility towards refugees and people seeking asylum.”

One of the misconceptions fueling this hostility is the idea that refugees and asylum-seekers come to Melbourne as freeloaders. That’s a myth, says Marx, who knows that many Australians assume “people seek refuge in Australia not to look for employment, but to receive welfare payments instead.” At Long Street, Jane and Francois instituted a three to four month traineeship program that accepts three students at a time. The only requirements are that students are under the age of 30 with conversational English-language skills and a love of coffee. They must also be willing to learn. Trainees undergo barista training at Collingwood Coffee College (CCC), the education arm of Proud Mary Coffee. The students first attend a four-hour workshop, “The Beginning,” which starts with the basics: an understanding of espresso extraction, including dialing in, texturing milk, differentiating between beverages, and establishing a solid cleaning and maintenance regimen. They later get on-the-job experience.

49 - Melbourne48 - Melbourne

“We intended to open up CCC as an education hub focused on empowering people,” says Lisa Feeley, the training Manager at CCC. It’s an especially important mission given the noise amongst Australians who say that refugees are unable to assimilate. The training program she runs welcomes diversity and promotes a sense of belonging, which enables her students to “take hold of the real opportunity: fostering skills and confidence to rebuild their lives in Australia.” The current class of students came to Melbourne from Somalia, Iran, and Papua New Guinea, Jane says. The only common ground they share is that they’ve been forced to leave their home country—and the fact that they’ve all landed at CCC. One of the current CCC students is 18-year-old Amina Hassan, a bubbly yet reserved woman, who f led Somalia with her family and has spent a significant amount of her childhood living in a Kenyan refugee camp. Hassan has been in Australia for eight years now; she is studying at a local school, works as a waitress, and is a barista-in-training. She says that coffee has always interested her, and when she visited Long Street

with a group of school friends, Jane offered her a trial. She’s learning on the job—about bitter and sour coffee, and about her style of interacting with people in a service role. “I like interacting with people. It helps improve my confidence,” she says. “At the same time, always talking to people and showing my personality can sometimes be quite daunting.” Hassan intends to stay on at Long Street after the apprenticeship is over. Not all trainees are like Hassan. Some are unable to stay on at Long Street after the training program, but Jane and Francois make a point to assist their graduates in finding ongoing employment. A new partnership between Long Street Coffee and Market Lane Roasters will make the long-term plan much easier to see through. Tyson Stagg, wholesale manager at Market Lane Coffee, agreed to give these trainees opportunities, effectively opening a pipeline between the two shops, as a way to give everyone a fair go. “I think there is a lot of noise in specialty coffee right now, particularly in Melbourne,” says Stagg. “But, when it comes down to it, we want to work with amazing people who are producing exceptional coffee.” And some of this new talent may, unexpectedly, come from abroad. •

51 - Melbourne50 - Melbourne

Customers outside of Long Street Coffee