Tiyya Foundation Inc

Culinary Training

Tiyya's social enterprise, Flavors from Afar, continues to host our Culinary Program. This eight week program teaches participants the basics of working in a professional kitchen while providing them with certification and career planning assistance. Culinary Program graduates can directly open their own catering businesses or find work in the restaurant industry with the knowledge and guidance of the program and its mentors with some even joining the Flavors from Afar restaurant staff. Special events such as farmers market vending and supper clubs give participants an understanding of various environments, professional food and exposure to a broader range of networks in Southern California.

Family Services

The bulk of our programs assist all family members, especially women and youth, to reach their full potential and highest quality of life. Tea and Tots Once a month, community members are invited to an organized playdate at the park. Parents participate in pop-up workshops all pertaining to parenting in America. Youth ages 0-7 are gifted diapers, toys, and school supplies at each event. Tiyya currently partners with the OC Diaper Bank, Sun Family Foundation, OC Black Moms and Soka University to increase community partnerships with early childhood education organizations to facilitate greater resources to our families around nutrition, medical care, developmental milestones, and mental health. Upon arrival everyone gathers to share appetizers and tea, hence the name “Tea and Tots.” Coffee and Conversation Refugees experience intense amounts of isolation even prior to arrival in the United States. Women especially experience isolation as many are homebound with children and domestic responsibilities. Tiyya hosts weekly Coffee & Conversation gatherings online to help women feel acclimated with socializing again. By hosting these gatherings online, we reduce barriers to participation that range from lack of childcare to cultural stigmas around women out alone in the community. These gatherings offer chances to practice conversational English skills, cross cultural communication, and relationship building. With the success of our online gatherings, participants now also meet in person for special events and Tea and Tots to further grow their relationships. Youth Tiyya seeks to provide academic, health, and social support for young participants. Tiyya’s celebrated Soccer program continues in Fall every other Saturday for youth ages 12-18. Our participants gather for drills and games along with healthy snacks. In addition to regular play, Soccer participants attend 2-3 outings to see professional soccer games through our partnership with the Orange County Soccer Club. This program provides our refugee youth the chance to make friends with peers that have experienced similar hardships and cultural references while participating in healthy positive activities. Tiyya also partners with local universities to provide group and one-on-one tutoring for youth ages 10-15 years old on a weekly basis. For all youth participants we offer recreational trips to museums, fun centers, fishing, and cultural institutions.

Economic Advancement

Job placement activities help any participant over the age of 18 to find and maintain employment. Our Job Placement Coordinator works with local employers and programs to place participants directly into jobs. Tiyya prioritizes serving women to address the gap in gender economic equity, yet no one is turned away from services. Unique to Tiyya, our career placement is not only created to find entry level employment, but also to re-certify participants in the professions they held in their home countries such as medical doctor, dentist, and engineer. We also offer traditional Job Coaching that teaches participants basic job search skills such as resume building and interview techniques.

Asylum & Migrant Program

Tiyya provides wraparound case management to asylum seeking and migrant individuals and families living in Orange and Los Angeles Counties. The Asylum & Migrant program is dedicated to empowering individuals confronting immigration challenges by offering personalized support, emphasizing critical needs such as housing and employment, fostering self-reliance, and enabling seamless integration into new communities. It navigates systemic barriers and inequities, ensuring fair access to resources and opportunities for those navigating immigration hurdles in the region. Our dedicated staff provide case management and various workshops and events for our program participants. Case management facilitates housing, education, employment, healthcare, and community inclusion. Our participants work with the Los Angeles case manager to find paid internships that create income and employment history in Los Angeles. These internship placements typically result in longer term part time work. Participants also work with our Economic Advancement staff for vocational education and other job readiness, job placement, and professional license recertification to begin establishing careers in the US with upward mobility. Tiyya is the only organization that provides certification support within employment programs in the region. Tiyya’s LA staff also provide workshops training nonprofits on how to deal with immigrants in culturally appropriate ways and what unique common experiences staff will see in asylum seekers identifying as LGBTQIA+. For participants, workshop topics include Know Your Rights, self care topics, entrepreneurship, and employment. Tiyya staff integrate participants in workshops so they may eventually go on to lead them and receive compensation. This “train the trainer” approach to education seeks to improve the understanding and dispel misconceptions of LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers throughout the nonprofit environment. Tiyya also hosts a variety of activities to support our participants in establishing healthy community and feeling comfortable in their identities. Our largest event in 2024 was our Quinceañera for participants and other community members that were not accepted as their identified gender and denied this coming of age event in their home countries. Through donations and sponsorships, our Quinceañera attendees experienced a night to remember with dresses, glam teams, dancing, and all the exciting elements missed when they turned 15. We look forward to continuing this tradition by providing yearly culturally specific celebrations of identity and community for our queer participants that incorporate the various cultures of origin for our participants.

Community Engagement

At Tiyya we work to tell personal stories of immigrants and their experiences. We use storytelling built on strength and highlighting the beautiful transformations in our community. We focus on finding and sharing unique stories of migration and how second generation immigrants preserve parts of their identities while navigating the United States with multiple public outlets and promote first hand accounting of experiences often told by people removed from the experience. To share these stories, our Executive Director cultivates community and belonging by hosting small (8-10 people) private dining experiences at Flavors from Afar. Focusing on individuals with layered and complex identities as children of immigrants, multi-ethnic individuals, and those who just feel they do not fit neatly into one cultural or social group expression, these “in between” community members are an increasing and oft overlooked segment of our society that seek a place to belong. Select community members are invited to attend curated conversations and participate in these salons. By sharing these rich stories and facilitating conversation we are changing the old understanding that to achieve upper socio-economic mobility one must abandon their heritage and culture of origin. For the general public, we offer Sounds From Afar, small to moderate sized gatherings where music from our participants’ cultures of origin is shared along with stories and history to provide context to the sounds. Tiyya partners with professional ethnomusicologists, historians, and culture producers to create unique experiences We seek to create a more integrated community where immigrants from all walks of life can celebrate each other and collaborate in health and happiness.