When Neimo Ali immigrated from Ethiopia and settled in San Diego, she didn’t know more than a few words of English, had little in the way of job skills and was uncertain about her future. What she did have was determination. And that determination led her to the San Diego College of Continuing Education’s (SDCCE) award-winning ESL program and its burgeoning collaboration with the nonprofit MAKE Projects, which operates an urban farm, cafe and catering service aimed at equipping immigrant and refugee women with job readiness training, an abundance of mentors and career guidance. With SDCCE’s ESL classes building fluency in occupational English and MAKE Projects providing the resume-building work experience, Ali today is a confident U.S. citizen with a vision lacking any limitations. 

“When I came to San Diego, I don’t know even how to say ‘hi’ to my neighbors, I didn’t know how to talk with people in English,” said Ali, 33. “I stayed home. I don’t know anybody. Now, I speak better, I have experience working in a restaurant, I have friends who I can converse with in English. I have a future.” 

MAKE is an acronym for Merging Agriculture Kitchens and Employment. Officially known as the Project for Self-Sufficiency through Education and Enterprise (Project SEE), the SDCCE/MAKE Projects collaboration was developed in the fall of 2022 and formalized a year later. Cohorts of six students sign up for 12-week job-readiness sessions with MAKE Projects, and 55 women and 20 youths have gone through the program this year through November 3.  

In 2024, two ESL instructors, Monica Cueva and Carol Basilio, were embedded with MAKE to train and support its staff and volunteers in working even more effectively with beginning-level English learners. They also revised and developed materials for MAKE and created content for a new beginning-level vocational ESL course focused on preparing students for working in the hospitality industry.  

Make no mistake, though: participants are not being pigeonholed into food industry jobs. SDCCE students have gone on to enroll in career education programs ranging from health care to child development. One, a single mom, is now a full-time student at San Diego City College with plans on becoming a social worker. Others are looking to start their own business.  

“This has been a very good experience for me,” said Homira Wahisi, an Afghani journalist who fled Kabul in 2022 and who spoke no English when she arrived in San Diego. “This was my first job in the U.S.” 

Wahisi recently secured a license to open a childcare center. 

Said Anchi Mei, MAKE Projects’ founder and executive director: “We’re basically a catalyst, but we’re an important catalyst, because we’re catching women who are in this valley of low confidence and low opportunity. We’re helping them to not just succeed in their next job, but to succeed in finding a career pathway and preparing them to succeed along that pathway.” 

Added Cueva: “This is an amazing opportunity. It pulls at my heartstrings when I see the impact that this is having. This is what we do.” 

The SDCCE ESL faculty collaboration was funded through a federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title II grant (WIOA). Signed into law on July 22, 2014, WIOA II is designed to assist immigrants, English learners, and adults without a high school diploma in gaining the language and literacy skills needed to secure a good job and economic self-sufficiency. MAKE Projects has been designated by the California Department of Education as a career training pathway for ESL students who are enrolled in both programs. 

“We’re meeting a need for women who might not otherwise be employable,” Mei said. “There is a lack of culturally competent, socially appropriate workforce development programs for low-literacy refugee women in San Diego, and we’re creating a safe space where our participants are feeling safe and welcome and are highly encouraged to be speaking English at all times.”  

ESL students begin their 12-week MAKE Projects journey with a two-week immersion in organic cultivation and farm-to-table cuisine at a MAKE Projects garden adjacent to Snapdragon Stadium in Mission Valley that supplies both produce for the restaurant as well as a Community Supported Agriculture box subscription program that generates revenue to cover operating expenses. 

That’s followed by another two weeks of training at the MAKE Café on University Avenue in the heart of North Park before they begin serving customers – many, if not most, of whom have no idea the people catering to them are recent immigrants and refugees from nations sometimes experiencing unspeakable horrors. And why would they? Impressively plated meals include the likes of a Farmer’s Cheese Spread with za’atar, rose petal, pomegranate molasses and house made focaccia toast, Southeast Asian French Toast, and Afghan chicken with jack cheese, pickled onion and Somali Bizbaz. 

Chedencia Martin, 24, who immigrated from Haiti by way of Brazil, wrapped up her 12-week Project SEE program on November 3. “This program helped me a lot,” she said. “It helped me improve my skills in English, to be more conversational. It helped me become more confident. And it helped me to continue with my objective to be a nurse.” 

 Her biggest takeaway? 

“Believe in yourself,” she said. “Never say you can’t do something. Believe in yourself. Believe in what is possible.”