Falafel served with pita bread. Chocolate cake. Apple pie.
These dishes were part of the food served by underprivileged youths from colonies in Kalighat and Tollygunge. The occasion was the inauguration of French restaurant school Toto in Chetla.
The school, which will also run a café, is a joint initiative of the local NGO Tomorrow’s Foundation and the French NGO Life Project 4 Youth (LP4Y), and is being supported by the French consulate in Calcutta.
“Our objective is education to employability. This is an entrepreneurship development project and we are looking at it as a business school,” said Arup Ghosh, founder of Tomorrow’s Foundation. Four volunteers of LP4Y have come from France to start the Calcutta project. “They are providing the knowhow, we are providing local help.”
In a two-storeyed house in Chetla which is housing both the school and the eatery, 15 youths are being trained to run a business when they are not busy picking up European recipes in the kitchen. “We had started off in October by recruiting five girls. When we started to think of the kind of business activities we should focus on, they suggested baking. It was important to take the idea from them based on their interest,” said Constance Delawstre, one of the volunteers.
That is how the seed of Café Toto germinated. The management is intent on serving only vegetarian fare. “We want to serve fresh and healthy food. We do not want to take a chance with meat in this heat,” says Delawstre.
The French volunteers are taking recipes of chosen Western dishes off the internet, preparing the dishes themselves for the students to taste and teaching them how to cook them. And if the reactions at the opening of guests like Marc Salesse, head of the consulate’s visa section, are anything to go by, their apple pie and chocolate cake are already tasting “just like back home”.
Not just cooking, the youths are also being trained in soft skills, like greeting a guest and taking orders, and management. “The youths have too much fire in the belly to not succeed. Once they complete the 12-month course, they should get entry-level jobs or set up their own place,” said Ranadeb Banerjee, a food and beverage industry veteran who is one of the coaches. The school offers them the option to continue beyond the course duration till they become self-sufficient.
Rama Rao and Gobindo Das, both orphans brought up in a Tollygunge NGO, are the biggest instances of the will to succeed. Rama had dropped out of school after Class VI but has taught himself spoken English. After a six-year gap, he has enrolled in an open school to appear in Madhyamik. Gobindo, too, picked up English on his own and took the Higher Secondary exams last year.
Other students stay with their families in slums. “I have to support my mother and two sisters. I am learning how to run a business,” said Sonu Kamti, who aims to deal in garments. Others like Laltu Singh and Gobindo Das are in it to learn computers. Such is their involvement that they have even sawed the café’s furniture themselves.
The guests left with a promise to return. “There was a need for such a café in our neighbourhood. The food is authentic and simple and the atmosphere convivial,” said Damien Syed, the French consul general. “It is a wonderful idea to create jobs through vocational training. Perhaps they can cook some German dishes too,” said Olaf Iversen, Syed’s German counterpart.
For now, the café will deliver food home on order and stay open only on advance booking. “Once the youths get trained, we will open thrice a week,” said Daniella, another volunteer.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / byu Sudeshna Banerjee / Wednesday – June 01st, 2016