Every Dish Has a Story

Empowering Refugee Women Through Food, Culture, Entrepreneurship, and Stories

Dream Cuisines 2024 is here!

Welcome to a new season of Dream Cuisines! We're thrilled to dive into this year's culinary journey brimming with diverse traditions, flavourful creations, and inspiring stories from a fresh cohort of women.

Dream Cuisines is not just a celebration of delicious dishes; it's a platform for fostering connections, discovering unique skills and talents, and nurturing food business dreams. Thank you for joining us on this exciting adventure!

Learn more

Watch 'Flavours of Hope: Nourishing Community, Cultivating Change' on CBC!

Learn more about Dream Cuisines

Flavours of Hope is a non-profit social enterprise that envisions newcomer women flourishing and experiencing belonging through cooking, storytelling, community-building, and entrepreneurship.

When you support newcomer refugee and immigrant women through Flavours of Hope, you help to build strong relationships, connections, and economic opportunity. All donations made through our website are tax deductible.

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Flavours of Hope equips and empowers newcomer refugee and immigrant women to:

Earn a livable income

Unemployment creates a cycle of poverty and takes a psychological toll on newcomers who are working to support their family and new life in Canada. We create opportunities and spaces to empower newcomer women to fully participate in the economy by earning a livable income and flourishing in the community.

Create social connections

We believe that sharing food and stories together can create strong connections and friendships. Food brings people together and builds bridges and understandings between different cultures. The act of eating together around a table can break down language, cultural, and socio-economic barriers, and build relationships between newcomers and Canadians.

Build equitable communities

We deeply value reciprocity and collaboration with individuals and groups in the communities. We strive to work together with local businesses, non-profit organizations, food networks, and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) mentors to create inclusive food systems and build equitable communities. We believe in the collective impact and power of women leadership.

“Food can be a vehicle for social change. It brings people together in a way that very few activities can.”

— Anim Steel, Nourish

About Our Programs

We build programs based on peer knowledge and deep relationship, centring women’s wisdom, culture, and food for meaningful connection and community-building.

Systemic barriers, social isolation, and lack of language access can make it difficult for newcomer refugee women to find safety and belonging. By creating platforms of shared experience, and using food as a powerful common language, we make space for women to bring forward their strengths and creativity for economic empowerment, holistic wellness and social flourishing.

Food Entrepreneurship

Dream Cuisines: A Newcomer Women’s Food Business Program

In 2021, amidst a global pandemic, we kickstarted an imaginative new program designed in collaboration with an inaugural cohort of newcomer refugee women entrepreneurs. In partnership with Coho Commissary, who provided commissary kitchen use, the Vancouver Farmers Market, Vancity Credit Union, and the Women’s Economic Council, we built Dream Cuisines from the ground-up to offer educational and skills-building workshops, knowledge-sharing networks, and access to mentorship. We have launched ten incredible newcomer women’s food businesses into the farmers market, retail shops, and catering since 2021!