Working with Refugees
Asma recently returned from a refugee camp in Erbil.
“It was very tough but also very rewarding. I worked with the Yazidi girls who had been captured in their very early teens, who had been kept captive and repeatedly sold by ISIS soldiers. They are survivors. They are the tough ones. So I set up a little cafe where they can learn how to cook and serve other people in their own community.
“It can be a business, as they get a small stipend. So instead of going and spending that money in other cafes and shops (outside the camp), they are actually going to help and support their own women, and cook their own food. These girls (when under ISIS) cooked for foreign fighters but they never cooked their own food.”
One of the biggest challenges these young women face is their ability to make a life for themselves while having been through the most horrific experience, and then to overcome challenges set by their own communities.
Asma continued, “The biggest challenge for these girls is that they have come back different people. It’s not just what they went through physically, emotionally and mentally. There’s this terrible thing about shame, that everything that happened to them suddenly becomes their shame (their fault). Some parts of the community are going back to the conservative traditional values saying that girls should not do this, should not do that.
“One of the girls who had been through a terrible thing said that they don’t let her go out of the village – I want to go and sell bread. There’s that frustration from these girls, when they’ve been through so much they understand what it is to be alive; as they say so much death. They want to make every day of their life count. They’re not willing to sit back, locked in their tents and not allowed to do something.
“These girls have a fire inside them. The elders need to understand that these girls need to fly, they need to be liberated. The kind of things they went through, they understand how precious life is.”
What’s Next
As offers flood in from around the world, Asma has been inundated with opportunities to build and grow her brand. While in the early stages, when asked what’s next, Asma shares some of her thoughts.
“To work with (more) refugees but also women who are not treated with honor. This could be women who work as prostitutes, their daughters, in places like India where a girl is born in a house where there are prostitutes and doesn’t have any prospects. So I’m looking at all these kinds of areas where the women have no hope.
“I want to go there and I want to use food as an opportunity, but purely as a business opportunity. Money matters so you empower the women. When they earn that money (selling food) they feel powerful, they understand that they are worth something.
“Till she earns that first note, holds it in her hand, and understands – I earned this – not by selling my body, not by doing anything wrong, but I got this by creating something (food to sell). All of us take it (running a business) for granted. But for women who have never done it, you see it in their eyes, it’s beautiful.”
On Downtime
Behind the fame and success, Asma is, however, an ‘ordinary’ woman. The mother of two boys, she is married to an academic and has a Ph.D. When one of her sons was struggling with his exams, for example, she put everything on hold and spent time with her son to help him improve his grades; as any parent would do.
Speaking of what she does in her downtime to relax, “I sing, I’m not great at singing. I love to sing and I love listening to music. I listen to 80s pop, really, kind of trashy pop. I love old Hindi music, Bollywood music. I listen to kawali a lot. I an eclectic mix of music, and music is my great passion.
Darjeeling Express is located in Kingly Court in London though if you do not have the patience to wait for a reservation you can always pick up her cookbook: Asma’s Indian Kitchen: Home-cooked food brought to you by Darjeeling Express. It will be a very different dining experience to the traditional curry houses found across the country.
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