A social enterprise training underprivileged young people in hospitality held a graduation ceremony for its third annual class on Monday.
Twenty students from across Myanmar celebrated the completion of a 12-month programme with more than 100 friends and relatives in Nyaung-U town near the ancient city of Bagan.
Mi Chay of Keng Tung in Shan state was farming and caring for her younger brother when Sanon Training Restaurant held a road show near her home.
With a dream of one day competing in MasterChef Myanmar, she joined the non-profit restaurant, which is run in Bagan by the Myanmar Youth Development.
“Sanon changed my life,” she told the ceremony. “I am very grateful to learn English—I started this with zero English.”
The students who are aged 17 to 23 and have no higher than a high-school education are partly chosen on their desire to work in the hospitality industry.
They undergo two interviews, a one-month probation period, and another year of monitoring after their graduation.
Lin Htike landed an internship at Yangon’s Novotel Max, where he gained some valuable experience serving diners on the buffet line.
He scooped a top student award at the ceremony yet remains as keen as ever to “learn more about food and beverage and gain more experience,” he said.
Seated among the audience was farmer La Khi Hla, who had travelled more than 40 hours from Keng Tung to watch her son Than Tun Lay graduate. The past 12 months they had talked over the phone and now they were finally reunited.
“We are very happy,” she said. “We want him to have a better future in a big place like in Bagan, and not come back because there is no work at home."
