interviews
EAT OFFBEAT
by Manal Kahi
June 15, 2019
This interview with Manal Kahi, co-founder and CEO of EAT OFFBEAT, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
EAT OFFBEAT is a New York City based catering company that works exclusively with refugees.
How did you get started on this work? I know the crux of the business is in hiring refugees, are there particular guidelines about who qualifies as a refugee?
Manal: We're a catering company. We deliver authentic meals that are entirely conceived, prepared, and delivered by refugees here in New York City. Basically the model is we hire talented refugees who are looking to be in the food industry.
They happen to be with the UNHCR, they happen to be refugees by status – but they are chefs by nature.
We train them, for those who haven't had a professional culinary training or haven't had experience working in profession kitchens – we train them so they become profession chefs, we help them scale their recipes and then we deliver their dishes. It's the way they make it at home but they prepare it at our commercial kitchen and we deliver that to mostly offices and private parties or events all over New York City.
image via EAT OFFBEAT
Does hiring a refugee have any complications or benefits?
Manal: Complications? Not necessarily. They are usually referred to us by the IRC, the International Rescue Committee, and maybe that's a good place to answer your question of how we decide they're refugees.
We have a partnership with the IRC, which is one of nine resettlement agencies in the U.S. They help refugees. They help them even before coming here, they provide assistance to refugees filing for refugee status back home.
And once someone is approved they go through the very lengthy security process. They get to the U.S. and the IRC is mandated by the government to assist them in the settlement process. That includes picking them up at the airport, finding accommodations. Part of the assistance they provide is also finding jobs or employment and this is where we come in. Whenever we're hiring they send us candidates who are looking for a job who are recently resettled or who simply just want to be in the food industry. And that's how we hire.
So to answer your question on definition of who is a refugee for us, it's really whoever gets referred to us by the IRC.
Are you hiring full-time or part-time?
Manal: There's a good mix of both. It's a blend. Anyone who's a chef, who has items on the menu, who is contributing to the menu, that's a full-time position, because we need that chef to be at the kitchen whenever we get an order. We have a few positions that are more part-time.
How many people are you working with at the moment?
Manal: We're close to thirty people day to day.
Wow.
Manal: And that includes every function. That's chefs, sous chefs, delivery operators, customer service, everything all together. And it's a mix of refugees but also a couple of Americans. Especially on administrative functions.
Are you looking to expand beyond New York City?
Manal: Not necessarily and definitely not right now. We would never say "Never", that might happen an some point but for now our focus is really on New York City alone.
Are you set up as a for-profit business or a 501c3?
Manal: We are a for-profit business.
Do you feel like you're mission driven?
Manal: We are definitely mission driven. Definitely heavily mission driven. It's what guides us, it's what defines us, and it's part of who we are. At the same time we see ourselves as a food company first, we are definitely food centric, we're people centric, and the mission is very heavy. But it's very important that we are making money because that's the only way we can actually achieve our mission and keep hiring people and keep paying them decent wages.
Business is super important but for us it doesn't makes sense unless there is the social mission part attached.
Can you tell me a little bit about your own background?
Manal: I'm originally from Lebanon. I came here as a graduate student in 2013. My background was in environmental management. My goal was to go a bit more into international climate affairs. I was working on climate affairs in the Middle East and I wanted to go international. That's part of why I chose to come to New York, to be close to the U.N., multi-national institutions or organizations. And then when I came here, I was a bit disappointed with hummus in grocery stores –
I heard.
Manal: So that's really what sparked the idea initially. I started making my own. I got my grandmothers recipe and when that became successful here we thought why not commercialize it.
The first step was the hummus, the next step was...
Manal: Exactly the first step was the hummus and clearly the idea was not just make hummus and sell it, it was initially to have it made by refugees here who were being resettled here in New York City who wanted to share their hummus recipes with the rest of New York and commercialize that. That was really the idea early on. Then after that we went to studying the market, looking at the idea and we thought it was much better to go global. We though why not open it to any refugees coming from all over the world and discover these recipes that, just like hummus, are so much better when their homemade or made by someone who knows how it should taste.
We hire based on talent and passion for food regardless of where people come from, but so far it's been very diverse.
Do you think that it's hard for refugees to find work placement?
Manal: From what I see, my own personal opinion, it's different when you're an immigrant versus when you're a refugee. The only difference is, mainly when you're an immigrant you made the choice yourself, so very often you would have taken English classes, you made the choice as to where to go and when to go and why to go. But when you're here as a refugee very often you actually had to.
And why that makes it a bit harder is because when you come as an immigrant, when it's you're own choice, you may have come as a student, you have a bit more leeway and a bit more time to give it more consideration and decide whether you're going to go and what you're going to do exactly. Whereas if you come as refugee very often you just have to flee and you have to make it work with whatever.
I wouldn't say it's extremely hard to find a job. Jobs are available. It's similar to anyone who's looking for a job. It is definitely much harder to find a job that is a decent wage and a good job that makes you proud and that brings your dignity back – because very often you don't have transferable skills, you probably don't speak the language, so if you had training as an accountant before coming here it's much much harder to find a job as an accountant than to find a job at something else you're not necessarily passionate about.
Is there anything you've learned in the process of working with refugees about the refugee process?
Manal: One thing we've learned is that simply by providing a work environment and an atmosphere where people form a community, and they help each other even indirectly by being part of that kitchen and part of that community, people start to integrate and adjust and get adapted to their new lives much easier than when they're isolated and do not have a supportive community around them.
I see it happening in our kitchen.
I see a very high level of resilience that I think is notable and particular. All of our chefs, you can just see it, they're ready to do whatever it takes to succeed and they're very committed to the work they are doing. They are also very adaptable. Whenever we have a problem, something going wrong, everyone is very involved in the work and passionate about it and finds a solution. I think there's that added characteristic that is very common among everyone who's on our team.
What are your goals moving forward?
Manal: We have three goals. The first is to provide quality jobs to talented refugees who want to be in the food industry. The second is more about New Yorkers – it's about introducing New Yorkers to this menu and off the beaten path cuisines and somehow connect them, build bridges, between them eating our food at their homes or offices and us cooking in the kitchen. And the third ultimately is about changing the narrative around refugees, showcasing a different and more positive story.
What do you think the current narrative is around refugees?
Manal: That's a good question. Very often the narrative is around a more negative rhetoric, "they are stealing our jobs, not contributing to the economy, taking resources away." Or if it's positive it's all about how vulnerable the community is and how they always need charity, they always need help. Those are two concepts we are trying to change or at least provide one example where it's not necessarily the case, and we really push our customers to shift perspectives a bit, change perspectives a bit. Because in our case we refugees, we immigrants, are actually helping New Yorkers discover something new. It's all about shifting the table on that.
We're a 'for profit' we're not a 'non-profit'. Part of that is to show our chefs are contributing to the economy. They are contributing to making a richer food scene here in New York. They're active contributors to the economy. They're adding value. They're bringing value. And that's the other thing we want to highlight. They're not relying on charity, they're not taking they are contributing, they're paying their taxes.
The narrative becomes less about pity and charity and more about contribution and resilience.
Manal: Exactly!
Seeing people for who they are and what they have to bring rather than the status they came with.
image via EAT OFFBEAT
interviews
In Conversation with Colonel Dillon, Operation Inherent Resolve
by Colonel Ryan Dillon
April 2, 2018
This interview with Colonel Ryan Dillon, the official Spokesman of Operation Inherent Resolve, was conducted and condensed by frank news. It took place December 15, 2017. This is part one of an ongoing conversation between frank and Colonel Dillon.
[Colonel Dillon] Hello!
[frank] Hi how are you?
I’m doing well, and yourself?
Good, thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me I really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
Well, I can just jump right in. You guys have had a lot of news in the last week or so.
Yeah. It’s been pretty sporty out here. You know when I first came into this, it was very busy, and things have been, at least in military operations, have slowed down a little bit. At least as far as air strikes in Iraq go. Less in Syria. There’s still plenty of fighting in Syria that is happening right now.
Before we go into what's happening right now, I want to take a step back. Could you explain the mission of Inherent Resolve as it started.
Okay, so we’ll go back. It's pretty well documented, and I don't know if you've been to our site Inherent Resolve, but you know, it was about three years ago when the Islamic State really came onto the scene as an organized army if you will. Meaning that they were largely in small groups that were able to conduct spectacular attacks in cities and on roads, sow fear amongst the citizenry. And then they started to take territory. And it was as they started showing up with vehicles, and armored vehicles, after every place that they were able to take, where there's any kind of military presence, the military then dissolved. Iraqis aren’t very proud of that, but they acknowledge that in many cases they just dissolved and just ran away. And so every place that that had happen, all the weapons — they started to grab them, the vehicles. And so their army if you will, just continued to grow, and grow, and grow.
And it wasn’t really until they were about 20 kilometers north of Baghdad that the Coalition stepped in. Quickly thereafter many nations started to jump on it, and recognize that the Islamic State was very much a global threat. The coalition continued to grow, and grow, and grow until it’s where it is right now. 70 nations. 4 partner organizations. To defeat Daesh. Not all of those nations are military contributing members, but many of them play roles in other facets of the campaign, overall to the United States. That's counter propaganda, working in centers throughout the world, or going after their finances, or formed terrorist networks.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, recently declared that Iraq is now free from ISIS control. Control over territory is one thing, but what about their ideology and intellectual presence? What’s the strategy moving forward?
The Prime Minister did say all areas have been liberated. However, he did make it very clear that we must still pursue ISIS relics and any other terrorist organizations, or any kind of terrorism that exists in Iraq. Any that does is counter to the way that we want to live in a won Iraq. So we must unify and continue our pursuit of any of these elements. We, as a coalition, assess in Iraq and Syria, that there are less than 3,000 fighters that remain in Iraq and Syria. So spread out in small areas in Syria. They still have territory. There’s still territory that we have not cleared, our partners at the SDF, have not cleared.
Back to Iraq, the Iraqi security forces know full well that ISIS still exists, both their ideology, and in small groups, and in cells that are throughout the country. And we know that for a fact because every single day the Iraqi security forces, all elements of it, the federal police, the Iraqi army, the counterterrorism service — they conduct patrols and are continuing to find these small cells. They continue to have engagements, small, but continue to fight ISIS elements. To include fighting and detaining foreign fighters that are trying to move throughout the area, trying to escape and get out of the country. So we know that there are pockets of ISIS.
There's also just you know, tons of explosives, and IEDs, mortars, and other materials that can be used for future attacks. And that's another thing the Iraqi security forces are doing. They’re going out and identifying all these caches, finding these tunnels that are, in some places, very intricate, and finding these hiding places where where they still exist.
Does a reduced number of ISIS fighters change your day to day drastically?
It does. So the way that we have conducted this campaign from the very beginning is through a strategy called By, With, and Through. And that is both in Iraq and in Syria. So in Iraq, By, With and Through means through our Iraqi Security Force partners. They are the ones that are doing the planning and the operations. They're the ones that are really fighting. They're the ones on the front lines.
We have provided support to the Iraqis really through five different ways. One is through intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Those are our drones and other intelligence collecting means and ways to identify ISIS fighters. Number two is by providing advisors, and our advisors were largely on the ground with the battalion and brigade elements while they were conducting these operations. These operations are when we talk about Mosul, when we talk about Tel Afar, Hawija, Akashat. So these are major combat operations. The fact that there are now very few combat operations that are underway, at the same scale that we have done over the last three years, those advisers are shrinking. Meaning that they are less required. So that's number two.
Number three is training and equipping. We have trained more than 125,000 Iraqi security forces across all facets of their military. That includes, the majority are Iraqi army, 44,000 Iraqi army. I think it’s about 25,000 Iraqi police — that includes local police, the Federal Police, Counterterrorism service, Border Guard Force, and tribal mobilization forces, and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters in Northern Iraq. So training. And then precision strikes, both ground artillery and air strikes.
So the strikes, you know, after all these major combat operations have gone down significantly. In September our totals were about 1,500. Then October was about 700. November down to just under 300.
I believe November 26 there were zero.
Correct. That was the first time in the three years of our campaign that we have not had a strike in either Iraq or Syria. And then it was about three weeks ago, almost a month now, that we announced that there were going be about 400 Marines in Syria that were going to redeploy, back to United States, and they would not be getting replaced. So the number of strikes continue to tailer off quite a bit. We still are very much into the training aspects, a lot of that training has shifted and adjusted accordingly now that the these major combat operations are finished. We're now transitioning to wide area security and the threat is less so of an army, if you will, the conventional type of threat, and more of an insurgent terrorist type threat. So they have adjusted accordingly in training. We will say that it is very much our intent to continue to encourage, and to provide trainers to do conventional type fighting.
If you rewind to 2014 that was really the issue. The problem was you had a lot of these Iraqi security forces that were in static positions and as soon as this conventional threat arrived, they just dissolved. So we see very much a necessity in training them on some of the conventional and combined arms type fighting that we’ve done for the last three years.
What’s your current assessment then on ISIS’s ability to project power from Iraq or Syria?
Very little. Number one, they are on the run. It makes it awfully difficult to manage and direct a global network when you are in pursuit at the rate that we are going after ISIS right now. There's no question that their twin capitals of Mosul and Raqqa were very much hubs for them both. They were, you name it, for many of the variety of different things that ISIS was doing, and they were organized, they were very adaptable. They're savvy. So we very much recognize that, and we don't want to see things like their research develop, their external operations, these branding efforts to conduct attacks in, you know, anywhere outside of Iraq and Syria. As we all know, all of these attacks that we've seen over the course the last three years, many of them emanated from planning in Raqqa and in Mosul. They were planned there. They were resourced there. They were launched from these locations. We don't want them to hold any territory or have any sanctuary. Because the other thing is, and I’ve read some really good articles recently that really dig into it, is their ability to manufacture and build weapons at an industrial level. And you can tell how nefarious — their intent. You’re talking about the type of weapons they’re trying to put together. They’re trying to mix chemicals. Thankfully they have not been very successful at that. But we don't want to give them time and space and resources to be able to get there.
Is there a laid out timeline for U.S. presence?
In Syria there’s still plenty of work to be done. We're training these local Internal Security Forces.
In Iraq, what gives you confidence that the areas that were so difficult to regain over the last three years, as you mentioned, won’t revert once you withdraw?
We've already seen the Iraqi Security Forces, in a couple different instances, show that they are very much capable of fending off attacks. About three months ago, there was an attack in Ramadi. There were about three simultaneous explosions happening at the same time, with several different ISIS fighters. Three years ago, the Iraqi Security Forces would have just said, uh oh, and ran away. In this case they very much stopped the attacks and nearly ran to the seams. And then, not only did they stop the attack, and kill those that were that were immediately there, but they went and put guys on helicopters, pursued them, and went after them as well. That's just one small indicator to show that they are very much in a better place than they were three years ago. I think the other thing is most people who have lived under Daesh do not want to live that that way again.
Do you consider Iraq a success right now? Should Americans?
It should be positive. You know, we’re talking very much about a military success. But that success does not equal full success. There's more that is required by the civilian efforts. I mean Mosul, east Mosul is great. People that were once displaced are all back here. University is back, it's open. Students are in there full time. It’s west Mosul that was just devastated by the amount of damage that happened from face-to-face fighting. So there are stabilization efforts that are required. In many cases immediately following a lot of these battles. You have to get the security taken care of. Because as we've seen, as we still see Mosul, in Ramadi, in Fallujah, and in Raqqa, the sheer level of explosives that ISIS has implanted and left in each location is mind boggling. I mean in Raqqa, the estimate right now is more than 8000 IEDs and booby traps left behind. Strictly and solely for the case of damaging, and hurting, and killing civilians who are going to come back. If you put these mines and booby traps in ovens, in dresser drawers, in kids toys, that goes beyond military necessity.