A lush garden, quaint patio and a group of eager high school students are some of the first things you notice at MAKE Cafe., a nonprofit organization whose acronym stands for Merging Agriculture, Kitchens, and Employment.
“We have the youth enroll in a 6 to 8 week paid work experience; they're working about 10 hours a week on the farm, in the restaurant and they have an hour a week of job readiness training. The adults are three months long and they're a bit more intensive, 12 to 15 hours a week,” Mei said.A few of the recent MAKE Projects youth participants include Nadein Osman and Hanan Idris. They both attend Crawford High School in City Heights and were friends before joining the program.
Osman said the program gives them a low-stress opportunity to improve their public speaking, writing and interview abilities.