Baking Vocational Training Program

Background:

Baking (as well as cooking in general) is an area of significant interest to Tibetans.  As with our successful massage therapy training program, we are certain there will be many young Tibetans willing make the commitment to completing this program.

Although one vocational training program in cookery is available in Dharamsala through Hotel Tibet, the program has a very limited number of spots and high fees, resulting in many ambitious young people being denied the opportunity to enroll. In addition this three month training program is insufficient in duration to produce cooks able to work independently in any hotel or restaurant.

Aims and Objectives:

Provide opportunities for Tibetan young people to participate in a career training program.  Those completing the program will have the skills to obtain long-term, fulfilling employment.

Duration:

On the basis of suggestions given by a professional baker, an average trainee can be trained as a qualified baker in six months. Therefore, we plan to offer a six-month course of training to a group of ten interested individuals. By offering this program twice annually, we expect to produce twenty qualified bakers a year.

Target Area:

We plan to keep the enrolment of this program exclusive to unemployed Tibetan young people. We strongly believe that this vocational program can, in time, significantly decrease the prevalence of aimless and impoverished young people in our community by ensuring that its trainees will obtain good job opportunities here or wherever they settle. In this way the problem of unemployment will be partially relieved in our society.

Capital and Initial Year budget for the Baking Vocational Project:

Most of the expenditure for the project will be used towards the initial purchase of the equipment necessary to run this new program. According to the knowledge of a professional baker, the bakery will need twelve major pieces of equipment, and on the basis this detailed information we have developed the following budget for this project:

Ongoing Funding:

Lha has a growing revenue stream that will continue to support the operating expenses of these new training programs after the initial year.  These revenue sources include our entrepreneurial services for tourists (massage, yoga classes, Tibetan language, Traditional Arts and cooking classes), fees from college and university exchange programs (Tulane, Loyola and others), as well as private donations.  In addition, Lha plans to charge student who can afford them fees for.

Total Capital and Initial Year Operating Expense: $28,394.00 USD