Cue Point launch crowdfunding campaign to support and promote marginalised communities in hospitality

The British-Afghan barbecue restaurant Cue Point has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support its latest venture, Cue Point Kitchen, which it hopes will help diversify the hospitality industry and promote those from marginalised communities into more senior positions.

Cue Point founders Joshua Moroney and Mursal Saiq are seeking £30,000 to help launch the scheme, which will provide both online and real world resources for refugees and immigrants struggling to break into the industry, as well as support those already working within hospitality to further their careers. Details of the campaign can be found here.

The social enterprise will teach cooking, management and financial skills, offer training for catering qualifications and help workers find professional development courses. It will also offer sessions focusing on, variously, speaking, writing and reading English; CV and interview skills; building a professional network; and running a food business. There will additionally be classes with a focus on mental well-being.

Saiq said of the enterprise: “Our sole aim is to further diversify the industry and create generational wealth with our training, nurturing and overall attention to the individual.

“So many fall into the lower rungs of the hospitality industry as it’s the largest employer of racialised individuals in the UK yet, at the lower levels, with no growth in generational wealth or prospects.”

The crowd-funder reads: “63 per cent of [hospitality] employees are from marginalised backgrounds but only 6 per cent of them are in managerial or entrepreneurial roles.”

Saiq’s passion for supporting refugees and under-represented staff is in part informed by her own experience as a refugee from Afghanistan. The restaurateur arrived in the UK with her family as they fled the country in the early 1990s, fleeing the war-torn state.

“I am a first-generation refugee whose entire life was ripped away and torn apart by war,” Saiq said of her journey. “I have taken control of that narrative now and believe we have found a real solution to helping refugees tangibly and practically as well as retaining a sense of pride and dignity.”

The campaign – which in part looks to push the industry to promote its existing workers – comes as hospitality faces a destabilising staffing crisis that’s putting existing employees under enormous strain.

For more information, or to support the crowdfunding campaign, head to this page.