Emergency respond to COVID-19 (Le Tonle Training)

1. Summary

Le Tonle training guesthouse and restaurant is a social enterprise project of the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT), a non-profit NGO in Cambodia). Le Tonle Training Guesthouse and Restaurant aims to provide free theoretical and practical training to young disadvantaged Cambodians in the area of tourism and hospitality such as front office, housekeeping, cooking and hospitality. By providing these skills in the short term, vulnerable youths are able to obtain varied and worthwhile careers and are able to live by themselves independently and support their family by sending some of their earnings back home. In the long term, the training is providing an opportunity for youth to develop themselves further in tourism professions and giving them general knowledge, which will enable them to take careers as one of the country's human resources. This will help solve the human development program of Cambodia and lift the poverty rate in the future. According to the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from 2018, thirty-five per cent of Cambodians are living in poverty, especially in the countryside.

1. Our 8-month training program

Le Tonle training program is recognized by the Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia under the National Committees of Tourism Professional as a vocational certificate. Trainees are trained by our experienced trainers, many of whom were our graduates from 2008. Most of the training periods are focused on practising and interacting with the tourism industry by supporting trainees to develop generic competencies such as computer skills and English proficiency.

1. Progress report

The small town of Kratie experienced it first big outbreak of Covid-19

In the past 3 months, the town of Kratie experienced its first biggest outbreak of covid-19. The local government reported between the 25th -28th of August 2021 the average of new cases found around 80 people a day. The local authority had shut down the market for 1 week and continued their mission on the covid-19 test to hundreds of people. The town went quiet and most businesses laid low. It was fortunate that none of our graduated students got inflicted.

The number of employment of our graduates has not changed. It was good to hear that some of them were having a good time with their family at the farm during the rainy season. One of our graduates managed to find a job during this difficult time at one of the guesthouses located around 250km from her hometown as a housekeeper. Theary mentioned it is a bit scary to work during the covid-19 but she had no choice since she needs a job to support her family. She needs to maintain her hygiene as much as possible. It is said that she won’t be able to visit her family more often than before because she is afraid that she may bring the virus to the family.

The team of Le Tonle had spent some of our time conducting some community capacity development in tourism. We were trying to make our time as useful as possible. It was challenging to gather during this time but at least we did something.

Our current biggest challenges

• Several villages lockdown. It was hard to conduct training as planned while technology and the internet could not be integrated at the village level due to resource challenges and internet reception.

• GG_project_Emergency_respond_to_COVID19_03_09_09_2021.doc.pdf (PDF)
  

Summary

Le Tonle training guesthouse and restaurant is a social enterprise project of the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT), a non-profit NGO in Cambodia). Le Tonle Training Guesthouse and Restaurant aims to provide free theoretical and practical training to young disadvantaged Cambodians in the area of tourism and hospitality such as front office, housekeeping, cooking, and hospitality. By providing these skills in the short term, vulnerable youths can obtain varied and worthwhile careers and can live by themselves independently and support their family by sending some of their earnings back home. In the long term, the training provides an opportunity for youth to develop themselves further in tourism professions and give them general knowledge, which will enable them to take careers as one of the country's human resources. This will help solve the human development program of Cambodia and lift the poverty rate in the future. According to the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from 2018, thirty-five percent of Cambodians are living in poverty, especially in the countryside.

Our 8-month training program

The Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia under the National Committees of Tourism Professional recognized the Le Tonle training program as the vocational certificate. Trainees are trained by our experienced trainers, many of whom were our graduates from 2008. Most of the training periods are focused on practicing and interacting with the tourism industry by supporting trainees to develop generic competencies such as computer skills and English proficiency.

Progress report hope there will be no other time harder than this time! The 20th of February 2021 was a nightmare for us as Cambodians and the team of Le Tonle. It was an event that we scare and don’t want to happen. Unfortunately, it is happening to us right now. The community spread of Covid019 is giving us even the harder time to fight with limited resources. Phnom Penh city is locking down and travel across provinces is banned. Tourism? Kind of dead at the moment including domestic. At the same, one of our landlords decided to increase the renting fee to 100%, which is not understandable. This gives us no choice but to eliminate one of our buildings since we cannot afford it. The good news it will still want Le Tonle to restart after the pandemic and we thought more training regarding technology will be included in the training to respond to the Cambodia industry 4.0 era (technology skills). Therefore, we are keeping the reputation alive and maintain one staff to do all of this work. Our current biggest challenges

1- We need to re-strategize Le Tonle. However, we have no capacity in doing this.

2- Need to find a way to respond if covid-19 is not ending in the 6 months as it might the end of our reserve resource

• GG_project_Emergency_respond_to_COVID19_03_05_05_2021.docx (DOCX)