Soul Food (Dez)

Today's Straits Times featured an article about a social enterprise, Soul Food Enterprise Pte Ltd.

Soul Food Enterprise is a restaurant set up by the boss Gerald Png, as he wanted his special needs daughter to have a place to work in. He realised that her daughter has an interest in cooking, so he decided to spend $60,000 (if i remember correctly) to set up the restaurant. 

The description from the Facebook page:

"It was set up as a social enterprise to train young people with special needs various cooking methods and techniques to produce high quality soups, sauces and desserts, with that hand-made, artisan taste and feel. 

The specific training we provide is with the intention to then employ them into our food production kitchen. Since we started full operation in March 2010, we have 9 trainees of which 7 have attained the basic food hygiene certification through our one-on-one approach to training and coaching."

In the interview with Straits Times, Gerald revealed that he has to spend a lot of time teaching the special needs youth to learn how to cook. Even a simple action of cutting the carrots took him a long time to teach the special needs youth.

The Facebook link to this restaurant can be found here. A review of the restaurant food can be found here.

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I am very impressed with Gerald's love for his daughter.... I can relate to the worries of parents with special needs kids. Worries about how they can integrate into the society, worries about their independence...

And now only did he set up a restaurant for his daughter, he set it up with a higher purpose, to provide sustainable employment for special needs youth.

I believe that social enterprise is the way to help those special needs youths... but right now, I have no idea what kind of social enterprise I can assist to set up.

So for those readers out there, if you have any good ideas for social enterprise to serve the special needs youths, do let me know. I will be more than eager to listen to ideas.

May God bless Soul Food Enterprise and the youths working there!

(P.S. who wants to visit the restaurant with me and my wife? :D)