Know One Teach One

Heya Folks,
This week kicked off with a cooking class last night at the famous KOTO restaurant near the Temple of Literature. This restaurant not only serves amazing tasty food, but also serves as a training centre for homeless and impoverished youngsters to learn culinary skills, which they then take on to jobs in top class restaurants throughout Vietnam and the world. Understandably, many of them stay on with KOTO for many years after they finish their training, becoming head chefs in the restaurants, helping to train up new chefs or running the weekly cooking class.

We had a fantastic evening cooking up traditional vietnamese vegetarian and vegan dishes like tofu with tumeric, fried taro and a sumptuous desert of barbequed banana in a sweet coconut soup. Our host for the evening, Hue, was really friendly and informative about the kinds of ingrediants used in Vietnamese cooking and how to get hold of them!

Hearing Hue's story and how she ended up in the KOTO programme really brought it home to me just what a fantastic scheme this is; it doesnt give people HANDOUTS but equips them with SKILLS which change their lives, and the lives of their families. (Hue uses her wages to support her family back home, in particular making sure that her younger sister can finish her education). The fact that many of the trainees stay on to become trainers themselves is a real testament to the success of KOTO, and surely is no finer example of the 'Know One Teach One' philosophy that underpins the organisation.

All in all a great evening.

SarahHeadsEast xx



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