York restaurant helping Afghan refugees to integrate - through food
The Chutni Restaurant says they want to help refugees by being as inclusive as possible.
A York restaurant is playing its part in helping Afghan refugees in the city to feel welcome.
Chutni Restaurant, which is based by the University of York East Campus, is providing free brunches at weekends for every Afghan refugee family in the area.
It's also believed the restaurant is the only one in York serving authentic Afghan food from the North-West frontier.
The team at Chutni trained chefs at Wilson Vale catering company, and it's hoped they can take the expertise of Afghan cuisine to other restaurants across the UK.
Farhana Shakir is the head chef at Chutni:
"People in York are extremely friendly by nature; my husband and I are both immigrants and we were made to feel very welcome.
"When we started our restaurant people were very supportive, and we've found people living here to be very open-minded. A lot of help is being offered to Afghan families here by the Council, NGOs, churches, mosques. It's in the nature of most people who live here.
"One of the things that we do is offer a free brunch at weekends to Afghan refugee families, so they can meet other Afghans and get away from their daily routines. It's always nice to have a break, even for a short time".
"We did an event a few days ago with Wilson Vale catering company to raise awareness of Afghan food and culture. We trained eight chefs there, and hopefully they'll be able to serve Afghan food more permanently. Those chefs will then train the other chefs within Wilson Vale, and have made Afghan food part of their offering through an internal cookbook.
"We want people to know more about Afghan food and culture. It's the generosity of people in York that helped us to settle here - we really like it.
"We also want to offer jobs to Afghan refugees at some point when they're ready - anything relating to Afghan food or where they may have experience. We'd be happy for them to join and help".