Job placement: an issue for the year 2020

Job placement: an issue for the year 2020

by | 24 Dec 2020 | Bakery and pastry school, Coffee Shop, Vocational training

The Bayon School is facing a complicated problem: finding professional opportunities in a sector, which has been greatly impacted by the total halt of tourism in Cambodia. The students will graduate at the end of December 2020 and our role is help them achieve financial security once they leave our program.  

From family to employer

We train young women from disadvantaged backgrounds in bakery and pastry making, thanks to a practical and highly professional training that enables them to find a job quickly in a field that, until February 2020, was experiencing a boom. Our support does not stop at the graduation ceremony and we accompany the students to the door of their first employer. We also help them in their search for accommodation (usually a small shared room) as they cannot return to stay with their families, who live too far away and often have little understanding of the reality of the working world in which their daughters will be working. We therefore support our students each step of the way to ensure their safety during this transition phase.

 

la 6eme promotion de l'école de pâtisserie
filles sur des vélos

Partners who are going through the crisis

After 6 years of existence, and with more than 80 graduates, the school has acquired a certain reputation among the hotels and bakeries of Siem Reap. The top chefs of the town recognize the quality of the training program, coming regularly to choose students at the end of the year; 90% of jobs are generally found in the Siem Reap network. This year, because of the COVID crisis, 78% of the town’s hotels have closed or ceased operations. Our partners for internships and professional placements have no openings to offer us so we still have to find professional opportunities for the 26 students of the 6th promotion (one quarter more than in 2019).

Phnom Penh, a growing local market

Cambodia’s capital city is home to a growing wealthy population, with a middle class that frequents international hotels, cafes and restaurants. Bakery products are popular and more and more Cambodians are buying French bread or pastries. At the beginning of November, our teams went to Phnom Penh to meet potential future partners. Renowned companies such as the Thalias group (a chain of top French gourmet restaurants in Asia), Kayser bakeries (7 branches in Phnom Penh) and Brown Café (a chain of luxury coffee shops) have shown an interest and 9 openings are currently available. 5 other students have already found jobs in Battambang and Siem Reap.

The young girls are sometimes very apprehensive about going to the capital (traffic, cost of living, …) so we accompany them in this next major step in their lives, doing our best to help them integrate structures, which will take charge of their care and their meal expenses.

Etudiante de pâtisserie entrain de réaliser un dessert
étudiantes posent avec un bouquet
Chef juge étudiantes de pâtisserie

The 7th intake

The students of the 7th class of the Bayon school will start on January 4, 2021. We have made a strategic choice to recruit only 15 of them so as to respect the rules of social distancing but also to avoid the risk of training students, for whom we may be unable to find work. The Cambodian government forecasts 20,000 tourists for the year 2021; this may be the glimmer of hope much needed by the tourist industry in Cambodia.

Coffee Shop : self-finance

Coffee Shop : self-finance

by | 17 Sep 2020 | Bakery and pastry school, Coffee Shop, Vocational training

Bayon Pastry School was created in 2014. Our first intake was composed of ten young women, all from underprivileged backgrounds in Siem Reap province. As the first year of our training ended successfully, it seemed essential to increase our capacity to make it accessible to a greater number of young women and families in need. The idea was to make this vocational training sustainable.

In 2015, Bayon Pastry School’s Coffee Shop opened its doors. The objective was to self-finance a part of our pastry vocational training. Pastries, viennoiseries and all kinds of breads are produced every day. The recipes are carefully elaborated by our Khmer chef Sokhoeurn Morn, also pastry school director. Her creations are then cooked by the production team mainly composed of former students of the school.The students, on the other hand, receive daily instruction in our two lab: pastry and bakery. They also learn, through the coffee shop, the basics of waitressing. Since its opening, the coffee shop has grown steadily and can now accommodate 30 people. It is now one of the most famous coffee place in Siem Reap city for its pastries but above all, for its quiet environment. This “corner of heaven” is sheltered from the hubbub of Siem Reap and its famous noisy “pub street”. To allow a good service, the coffee shop now counts 3 waitresses and 3 young girls work in the kitchen.

The pastry school also receives orders from restaurants, hotels and spas of Siem Reap. With a dozen regular customers, we are currently able to deliver different varieties of breads and pastries every day across the city. Among them are Bodia Spa, hotels Mémoire, Maison Polanka or even Sala Lodges and restaurants Bakong, Georges Rhumerie or Le Bel Air.
In summary, from 3 years, the coffee shop sales has been enabling us to self-finance 47% of the budget of the pastry school. This last year 2018/2019, we even reached a rate of more than 50% of contribution. And 23 students benefit from our baking and pastry training for free thanks to the Coffee Shop incomes!

Another great way to get involved with our association, another way of giving : a good cake for a good cause !

Bayon school – Dealing with COVID-19

by | 16 Sep 2020 | Agroecology training, Bakery and pastry school, Coffee Shop, General education, Health, hygiene and food, Primary school, Secondary school support, Social and families support, Sustainable agriculture and environment, Vocational training

It has now been close to four months that COVID-19 has spread across the planet. Even if Cambodia has officially registered very few cases and no deaths, the country has not been spared and its population is suffering from the loss of jobs and the lack of tourist activity. Bayon School is doing their best to help the families during this unprecedented crisis.

Support the families – The first urgency

Since mid-March, no tourist has been allowed to enter the country and the large majority of the hotels, restaurants and spas have closed, leaving thousands of workers with no jobs and no compensation from the Cambodian government. Many of our families have been affected, losing their primary source of income which allowed them to meet the basic needs of 8-10 people. Furthermore, the children who used to go to school were being fed breakfast and lunch at the canteen, one thing less for the parents or grandparents to provide. Now they are at home and need feeding by their families, adding an additional charge.

Faced with this critical situation, Bayon School reacted quickly. From Week 1, all the vegetables grown by the famers invested in the Green Project were bought by the NGO and then distributed free of charge to the parents of our pupils. This guaranteed a salary for these women farmers and the insurance that the children would continue to eat healthy vegetables. In addition, our social teams studied the families very closely and we started distributing rice to those in desperate need from the second week after the school closure. Special thanks to our donors and the company AMRU Rice for their precious support, which allowed us to finance the rice and vegetables.

Closure of the Pastry School and Coffee Shop – What happens next?

At the Pastry School, we had to send our 26 students back to their families and, as a result and out of obligation, close the shop. The Coffee Shop of the Bayon Pastry School, opened more than 4 years ago, covers 50 % of the budget required for the pastry/baking training programme. Its closure means a significant loss of income for the NGO, which we have been able, in part, to compensate through the generosity of our donors. After two weeks of adjustment and holidays for the catering staff, we put in place several projects in preparation for the re-opening: inventory, storage, planting in the gardens, painting the walls, Spring cleaning, … In the end, the team was very busy. In addition, Sokhouern and Sokly developed a brand-new range of bread with no fewer than 10 new references for sale in our future bakery. They had the time to test new recipes to ensure a wide range of products that we will be able to offer the hotels and restaurants once they can re-open. Finally, since the end of April, the teachers have put in place online lessons for our students, who, each day, receive videos and telephone calls to keep them up to date and help them revise their lessons.

Social follow-up, survey and report

Our social teams have been very committed during this period. They worked firstly on identifying the families with the most difficulties in order to help them in the best way possible. This crisis has also given us the possibility to take a big step back and analyse the impact of our actions on the children and their education. A further study was led with the alumni of the Pastry School, with the aim of updating the details of our former students, analyzing their career paths and reviewing their situation one to five years after graduating.

And our communication?

We have launched the huge undertaking of redoing the website for Bayon School. It will be revealed soon! And we are trying, as best we can, to stay in touch with all the friends of Bayon School, who, we know, stand by our side. An enormous thank you for your help which has allowed us to manage this crisis and help our families as much as possible. We hope to reopen the schools very soon and see again the happy, smiling faces of our pupils as they play outside.

New work space at pastry school

New work space at pastry school

by | 16 Dec 2019 | Bakery and pastry school, Coffee Shop, Vocational training

The Bayon Pastry School has begun its sixth school year with a new intake of 26 students. The site has been transformed from its modest beginnings and the training programme is now highly professional and well known in and around Siem Reap.

Our experience has led to a growing reputation and our students find jobs easily once they have finished the programme. Over the last 5 years, 86 students have graduated and found stable jobs.

What’s next? We want to grow and improve our training site as well as the quality of our bread. Our students are trained mainly in pastry but we want to develop our bread-making programme. With this in mind, we have decided to create a new baking laboratory for use by our students.
WEB-IMG_0987

Let’s find out more from Sokhoeurn, the head of the Pastry school:

What are the objectives of this new work space?
The main objective is to extend our premises to allow us to recruit more than 25 students per intake. In addition, up until now, we have concentrated on pastry and the equipment we use is not particularly adapted to bread-making. We would therefore like to invest in more specialised equipment for this new programme.

What has changed compared to the old pastry lab?
Apart from giving us more space, the major improvement has been made in reaching required standards of hygiene. With this new work space, we will be able to operate in compliance with international standards of hygiene and food safety.
WEB-IMG-1805
Have you invested in specific equipment?
We have invested in the small equipment which Is essential for break-making, as well as a dough-making machine, spiral mixers and an oven. I am particularly proud of the investment in the cold storage room which will enable us to manage our stock better. These recommendations were made by Lesaffre and Arizta, our partners on this project.

What are your projects for the future?
We would like to improve the quality of our bread and then promote it in Siem Reap. We want our students to realise how important bread is; they need to understand that it is the equivalent of the rice that we eat with every meal in Cambodia!

A very big thank you to all our sponsors, this project could not exist without your loyal support : Aryzta, Fondation Sodebo, Lesaffre, Kitchen Aid ; and not forgetting severals donators who gave in honor of Irene Meister.
WEB-IMG_20191209_164149

Another school year comes to an end at the Bayon School…

by | 2 Dec 2019 | Agroecology training, Bakery and pastry school, Coffee Shop, General education, Health, hygiene and food, Primary school, Secondary school support, Social and families support, Sustainable agriculture and environment, Vocational training

Another school year comes to an end at the Bayon School… and before we know it, another group of students has joined the pastry school whilst nineteen new little ones fill the empty benches in the Kindergarten class. Such is the life of a school: some move on, leaving the space open for others to integrate our classes. There is always a lot happening, which is how it should be! Initiatives come to light, ideas abound, things take shape, the teams get on board and new projects come to life…

Maternelle-groupe
The 2018/2019 school year started at the primary school with an overhaul of the teaching system, following recommendations made by Rodrigo and Anaïs, after their audit of our pedagogical set-up.• A new primary head has been recruited and the teaching team has been renewed, giving preference to full-time contracts, which allows us to put in place extra support classes for children who may be struggling.
• Two new buildings have opened their doors; a computer classroom for the pupils of Grades 5 & 6, as well as a library with over 400 books in Khmer.
• A brand-new canteen and water management system have been inaugurated.

These investments have only been made possible through the generous support of our sponsors and donators. Without them, we would not be able to achieve so much. An enormous THANK YOU!

Anais-et-Rodrigo
Our secondary students participated in the monthly careers events with professionals who came to present their jobs. A jewelry designer, HR in a travel agency, accountant in an NGO, manager of a hotel: very diverse worlds come together to talk to our students, allowing them to project themselves into a professional future which is not really that far away after all. This year, they were also lucky to be able to participate in an intercultural exchange with students from the Lycée Français of Singapore, which was rich in emotion.
The vegetable gardens have never produced as much as this year; it really was a bumper crop! 80% of the canteen’s vegetables were grown locally and ecologically in the plots of the 8 families involved in the Green Project. Every day at daybreak, 25 Kg of vegetables arrive by motorbike, tuktuk or even bicycle to allow our cooks to prepare the meals for our 250 pupils, who start lunch at 11 o’clock for the youngest amongst them. It is quite a marathon to keep the families motivated as market gardening really is a daily enterprise with no time for rest. This year, we have been able to equip each family with an automatic irrigation system, allowing them time for other activities such as weeding, harvesting, pest control, etc.

Sem-Chum-potager
At the pastry school, 21 young women graduated at the end of August. With their diploma under their arm, they set off towards a secure professional future in the hotels in Siem Reap or Phnom Penh and/or in the bakeries looking for qualified labour. These students, who joined us in September 2018, were unrecognisable when they left; shy, reserved and unsure of themselves at the beginning, they left us brimming with self-confidence and armed with a trade that they can and must promote. We are astounded by their capacity to learn and absorb so much in only 12 months.

Intake-5-graduated
The new students who arrived in August 2019 have already taken their first steps in the pristine Bakery Lab, which we have just inaugurated and which will enable us to train more students in better conditions.

The Bayon School is moving forward – thanks to its teams and numerous loyal donators who believe in its project. Let’s continue together!

Please find attached the Activity Report for the year 2018/2019 for further details on what we do.

PORTRAIT OF SOKLY : our teacher for the pastry school

PORTRAIT OF SOKLY : our teacher for the pastry school

by | 17 Sep 2019 | Bakery and pastry school, Coffee Shop, Vocational training

Sokly is 34 years old and mother of 2 children. She joined the team in February 2017.
Before, she was a cook in a Khmer restaurant that she had opened herself. Even if it was small, she always loved cooking and took a great deal of pleasure from preparing traditional Cambodian dishes for her customers.

WEB-Sokli
After advice from a friend, she decided to try the entry contest to get into the prestigious École d’Hôtellerie et de Tourisme Paul Dubrule. She completed it successfully and followed the pastry training.
After graduating from Paul Dubrule in 2016, she also enrolled in a cake decoration training in Sihanoukville as well as with the Vietnamese company Cream to complete her skill set.
She was then recruited by Brown Coffee, a Coffee shop Cambodia chain famous throughout the country. She worked 7 months in one of their cafés and met a few students who were there for their internship for a school that was growing in popularity: Bayon Pastry School.
Her old pastry teacher at Paul Dubrule vividly recommended her to Sokhoeurn, our pastry school director. What was the essential quality that convinced Sokhoeurn? Her skills in the preparation of vienoisseries and breads.

WEB49203245_360365381178717_9056987035327266816_n
Bayon School was an opportunity for her to exceed her expectations. She now teaches all the classes linked to pastry, practical and theoretical. She is very happy to be able to share her knowledge with her students who are very curious, attentive and diligent. Day after d ay, she tries to make her classes more interactive by creating a variety of activities and workshops. To successfully lead this project, she does not hesitate to ask for help from ex-teachers and her friends.
The main objective for her is that the students enjoy their training and have the platform to showcase their creativity. She is also committed to the importance of post-training recruitment for the students. It is very important for the students to find a stimulating position, that they enjoy and have a salary which permits them to live and to help their families.
Sometimes she feels like a second mother for the students who decided to study pastry far away from their homes. She listens to them, helps them and is always available. `
Like every year, the end of the year is particularly difficult for her as she has to say goodbye to the students that she guided and supported all year. Unfortunately, the transition with the following promotion of students is rarely very long.

WEB_MG_9839
The new academic year started at the start of September and Sokly already has many ideas of games to teach pastry in ludic way and in order to share a maximum of knowledge in the simplest fashion.
Well done Sokly and thank you for your investment!