How a daughter of migrants turned her experience into one of France’s most impactful startups
If you’re a member of the digital generation, you’ve probably thought about trying to change the world at some point. Technology is helping many people do that. But, sometimes, it’s hard to see the impact. Donia Souad Amamra proves that you can still make a big difference with it or without a lot of money.
Donia Souad Amamra is the co-Founder of the French start-up Meet my Mama (meetmymama.com). It’s a startup that’s having incredible impact on the lives of migrant and refugee women by giving them comprehensive training and quasi-recruitment for good jobs.
On one side there’s Meet my Mama — the commercial platform that creates culinary events and trips for companies. On the other is “Empower my Mama,” a non-profit that trains women to start successful careers in cooking or restaurant management. And then helps them break into the gastro industry.
The goal is to empower the Mamas with tools that help them find gainful employment, purpose and economic parity, be it as company employee or entrepreneur. Since Donia started her social enterprise in 2015, it has turned around the lives of 30 women. At present, there are 100 more potential Mamas in the pipeline.
“We really want to prove that a Mama can have the chance to be the chef of tomorrow and she can be a role model for society — no matter what country she comes from.”
A disadvantaged start turned into a real opportunity
The creative inspiration for the start-up came mainly from the film “Lunchbox” — a woman’s attempt to win back a love with food.
But Donia’s ultimate inspiration for Meet my Mama has its roots in her childhood. The child of Algerian migrants, she was born and grew up in the underfunded Parisian suburbs — les banlieues. In a city where education and job opportunities are often dictated by postcode, she could easily have become a victim.
“When you are from a high school in the suburbs you have less chance to get into the big, big schools in Paris because you don’t have the same subjects and training (as others). It’s sad but it’s true. It’s reality.”
Instead, Donia took advantage of a government-backed program for underprivileged children. These types of programs are evidence in itself of a problem in France.
President Macron recently acknowledged these issues in May this year by introducing a raft of measures to create equal opportunity for those in les banlieues. Initiatives include 30.000 new internships and anonymous testing for France’s biggest companies to see if they discriminate against ethnic minorities.
Donia enrolled via a high school partnership at ESSEC in Paris, one of France’s top business schools. For three years, one day a week, she and other “socially deprived” pupils received classes in subjects like orientation, general culture and English. Donia’s school also helped her get into the elite French university Science Po.
There she developed her social and business chops. But it was a trip to America — a gap year at the University of Missouri — that acted as a catalyst for her marrying the two.
Unlike in France, volunteering is traditionally viewed as a resume booster in America. So part of her course involved a mandatory volunteering module which she spent at a shelter for female victims of abuse.
Her time in New Orleans convinced that her to make a real go of social enterprise. One chance encounter stands above the rest. It was a woman she met who herself was poor but still determined to tackle social inequality. She worked preparing meals for the homeless and set up a market stall to sell clothes to fund her operation.
“I was wowed because she didn’t have anything but still wanted to help and have an impact and share. I was like, yeah, she is right.”
Donia returned from America in 2013 with hands-on experience and a renewed determination to make a social impact. While she worked towards her master’s in public affairs, she didn’t want the usual outcome.
“I wanted to know more about public affairs but I didn’t want to work in governmental public service. With yes, within no. I also didn’t want to work in an organization. I wanted to make money and be my own boss, and in France when you engage in social work, it is uncommon to have this mindset.”
Buoyed by her American experience, she also threw herself into volunteering. She reported on migrants for Radio France International and taught them French. She also made volunteering trips to Algeria, the homeland of her parents, and Egypt.
It was here that she discovered another ingredient to Meet my Mama — food as a vehicle for expressing culture. Together with the natural Middle Eastern knack for hospitality, she had found her formula.
“When you have guests it is so important to take care of them. So much that it’s more important for them to eat well than for you.”
By the time she graduated, Donia was positioned for success. But not by accident. Her development owed itself to hard work, a passion for social justice, and travel lust.
Which naturally led her to immediately launching Mama’s Cooking, the forerunner to Meet my Mama with a student colleague, Loubna Ksibi after graduating in 2015.
“I’m an aims girl. I have goals in my life. From the beginning, it’s been my goal to help people.”
Like the woman in New Orleans, though, she needed to fund Mama’s Cooking and herself. She took a salaried job as a junior consultant at Tenzing, a strategic consultancy. Juggling two positions was draining.
“I was so tired. Between my work as a consultant and the company, I did not sleep much. I worked every weekend.”
Although she did this for nearly two years, after the first year at the end of 2016, there was a dramatic change. And as much as she’d determined her own path to this point, it was actually a chance encounter that paved and cemented it. At the time Mamas Cooking engaged refugee women to cater for events.
“We wanted to be like Deliveroo with the food of the Mamas.”
It was a good idea she decided to add more when Youssef Oudahman emailed her out of the blue. He reached out to explain that he’d quit his job in 2015 to start a project called Mama’s Kitchen. The two ventures had a lot in common. Donia and Loubna set up a meeting with Youssef. They decided to partner up. The result was a new social enterprise and a new name.
“We had the same principles, the same values, the same mission. And I was like; let’s just go further together. So we created Meet my Mama.”
The three pulled their social enterprise together without any funding in the first year, running over 400 events by themselves — all without any technology. Just old fashioned networking.
“We wanted to prove that the concept works, that we had clients and that we still wanted more.”
The first Mama proved they had started something impactful
From the very first Mama they helped, Donia knew the life-changing power of the concept was there.
Nitharshini was a Sri Lankan woman living isolated in the suburbs. Clearly out of her social element and unsure of how to find work, Donia engaged her to cater for a party of 30.
Her daughter was on hand to see her pull off the party with MasterChef style to rousing applause. Nitharshini also decided to get back in touch with her family and friend in Sri Lanka, whom she’d been reluctant to contact because of her dire circumstances.
The Meet my Mama concept also turned around the life of a 45-year old Algerian woman who’d left an abusive relationship with four children, lost her job, and had run up huge debts. Within one year of connecting with Meet my Mama she had paid off her debts and is now an entrepreneur with her own catering company.
Success turning heads. And opening investor wallets
On the back of such success stories funding increased for Meet my Mama. The money enabled Donia to quit her consultant job in December 2017 and devote her attention full-time to the opportunities coming to the venture.
Another big early break was the Mamas being named official ambassadors for a new line of Danone yogurts inspired by authentic global recipes.
Danone also created a space to showcase Meet my Mama in Paris. Twice a week, with a different Mama at the helm, the Mamas put on a dinner and brunch, showcasing cultures from around the world. These events, where the mamas could speak about their journeys and cultures, proved so successful that the chairman extended the lease and handed the project over to Donia and her team to run.
“So now we have our own space in the heart of Paris. It’s our place, it’s the Mama’s place.”
Donia and her partners have staked their claim as modern day engineers of social change. If you forgive the pun, they are now seasoned entrepreneurs, and with financial support from big companies like Carrefour, Accenture, and Entreprendre et Plus. Meet my Mama is growing their portfolio.
In a country where 90% of the chefs are men, all the Meet my Mama initiatives are welcome. They also change the narrative and create respect for their workers, so the organization can tackle important issues — like getting professional acknowledgment for individual Mamas, so that their years of cooking experience is just as recognized as other qualifications.
Meet my Mama challenges discriminatory laws and creates opportunities for those that are otherwise marginalized. Donia sees this institutional change just as, if not more, important than individual betterment. Their model might also do the same to a place near you.
“For now we are in Paris but we want to go abroad everywhere because even in Berlin, London, New York, you have the Mamas and you have the customers. So you can go anywhere.”
So when Donia Souad Amamra says she wants to change the world. Believe it.
To see more of the great work that Donia and the Mamas do, head to their website at www.meetmymama.com.
