Through Dream Cuisines, a cohort of newcomer women gain access to mentorship, kitchen space, and peer-based knowledge sharing as they build up their burgeoning food businesses and launch them into the mainstream.
Welcome Dream Cuisines 2025!
We're excited to announce the start of our 2025 Dream Cuisines Food Business Program, empowering a new group of talented newcomer refugee and immigrant women to launch their food businesses!
Join us in welcoming: Rocio from Chile, Maria from Peru, Claudia from Venezuela, Emem from Nigeria, and Liza from Colombia.
We can't wait to see their culinary dreams take shape and the impact they'll make in our community.
Stay tuned for updates on their journey!
2024 Impact Report
Discover the transformative year we've had! Let’s celebrate the immense growth, inspiring stories, and impactful feminist food businesses led by newcomer immigrant and refugee women entrepreneurs in our community.
“It’s hard to be in a new country, and starting a new business is hard. With Dream Cuisines, someone is always beside me to support me.”
Watch 'Flavours of Hope: Nourishing Community, Cultivating Change' Documentary Film on CBC!
about the program
Dream Cuisines is empowering & equipping newcomer women entrepreneurs to make a living by doing what they excel at: cooking and sharing food! This 9-month immersive program addresses systemic barriers in the food industry, providing women with access to educational workshops, peer knowledge sharing, commissary kitchen space, sales channels, and a network of supportive relationships.
program tenets
Care and reciprocity
We prioritize the work of nurturance, care, and emotional support in programming, creating platforms for reciprocal relationships and meaningful connections between women, mentors, and other small business owners, so women’s businesses are bolstered by community and sustained for the road ahead.
Anti-racist & feminist framework
Built and led by women of colour, Dream Cuisines centres the voices and wisdom of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) in building, leading and facilitating programming. We work to combat systemic racism and oppression as we seek increased access and equity, with relationships at the centre of the work.
Heart & body centred
We emphasize a decolonial approach by integrating embodiment through breaths, pause, and paying attention to our bodily needs. Recognizing that women’s well-being is affected by multiple factors, we seek to provide holistic support and build trust—nurturing not just a business, but the whole person.
Prioritizing peer knowledge
We move away from traditional charity and service-provision models, and instead towards equipping women in their strengths. We notice and work to equalize power dynamics, seeking women’s self-determination in decision-making.
Collaboration and adaptation
In creating a program amidst an ever-evolving food landscape, we found imaginative ways to meet women’s need for flexible work and economic provision for their families.
Dream Cuisines is proudly supported by:
