中文以下
The 11th of May was a rainy Sunday but Pascal Tepper, a top French Baker who had come to Shanghai for the 18th China Bakery Exhibition 2014 , paid no attention to the weather. As soon as he landed, he rushed to the Shanghai Young Bakers’(SYB for short) baking centre on Suide Road. There, the master baker spent five hours showing 28 trainees how to bake. These trainees were selected through a non-profit project. As they waited for the bread to bake, Tepper also very patiently answered questions from his students.
SYB is a non-profit project initiated by 12 French volunteers in 2008, which provides young people from impoverished families with free training sessions on French baking for a year to help them find better jobs. Now, 20 to 30 young trainees are recommended by SYB’s cooperative NGOs each year. SYB interviews them on health, age, family background, education background, their motivation and passion for baking. During the year of training, the students usually follow the following schedule: each month, they have theoretical courses for two weeks and then do an internship in a hotel or bakery for another two weeks.
In addition, SYB invite masters like Pascal Tepper to give lessons periodically. This is Tepper’s sixth time as SYB’s guest lecturer. After graduation, the trainees can find jobs in high-profile hotels, restaurants and bakeries. According to Floriane Lemoine, SYB program manager, around 100 students have graduated since the project was launched in February 2009, 70% of whom choose to make a career as a baker.
Teach If You Are Good Enough
Had someone told Xiao Jinjin six years ago that she would study baking in France, she would have thought it an impossible dream. But fate is so unpredictable that in three years, she became a student at the Ecole Française de Boulangerie et de Patisserie d’Aurillac (EFBPA) and obtained the French baking certificate (C.A.P) in six months. Now, she is a bakery trainer with three-year’s experience. And all of this was because of SYB.
After graduation from high school in 2008, Xiao had hoped to study baking. However, she soon found that bakery training schools were too expensive. She was lucky enough to be recommended by the Chi Heng Foundation to be one of the first trainees at SYB. At its first class in 2009, SYB’s training only lasted six months (from 2010 on, training lasted a whole year). After half a year of study, Xiao found that she wanted to know more. Therefore, she stayed on and studied with the next group of trainees. By August 2010, Xiao had blossomed into a fully-qualified baker. And then she got her opportunity.
As a volunteer initiated project, SYB had neither full-time staff nor baking teachers before 2010. The first three classes were taught by bakers from Lesaffre. However, as SYB intended this to be a long-term training project it required full-time trainers. So, in the second year of the project, SYB began to solve this problem by sending top students to France for further training.
After half a year learning French, Xiao was sent to EFBPA together with Zhang Zhenghai and Wang Li (two other SY B trainees) to further their study in traditional French baking. They graduated in August 2011 and returned to Shanghai, beginning their mission as SYB’s trainers. Now, Xiao has been teaching at SYB’s baking centre for three years.
This summer, Zhang Shuai and Jin Huizi, two of her students, will be sent to France just as she was three years ago. However, most of the graduates from SYB are not as lucky as Xiao. They have to look for jobs themselves. Lemoine explains that though SYB doesn’t arrange employment for the students, its graduation ceremonies also serve as a Careers Fair.
Hotels, restaurants and bakeries are invited to graduations and the trainees can have interviews on location. In addition, to improve students’ chances in the job market, from the very beginning of the project SYB has cooperated with the Shanghai Caoyang Vocational School. The school provides trainees with basic education, as well as training in an Asian pastry course and accommodation (SYB pays for its trainees). Thus, the trainees can get diplomas and professional certificates issued by the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources Bureau, which is a great help to them when job hunting.
Staff and Fund, Both Are Essential
SYB has experienced three stages of development with regard to staffing: firstly, an all-volunteer mode, then with one full-time staff plus volunteers, and now there is a full-time core team with volunteers. Without doubt, volunteers play a crucial role in this organization, whether it be the initial 12 French volunteers or the big team of over 200 volunteers now. However, the mobility of volunteers affects the stability of the project to a certain extent.
In 2010, SYB cooperated with the Chi Heng Foundation from which a full-time staff was selected to be in charge of the project. But in Lemoine’s opinion, most Chinese NGOs face the same problem: the NGO is too dependent on one person, usually the founder. Should this one person leave, the organization or project is unable to continue its operations; and this is why she underscores the importance of building a team.
Therefore, after she began to run SYB in 2011, one of Lemoine’s main tasks was to build this team. Now, SYB has a team of 10 including full-time staff and interns. the team has begun to take shape: a project manager, baking trainers, counselor (From last year, SYB began to have a full-time counselor to take care of the students’ lives and studies in the Caoyang Vocational School), as well as staff or interns in charge of marketing, public relations, administration, finance, design and building partnerships, etc.
Apart from the team, funding is also a major concern of course, especially at the developmental stage, with its team expanding, and the number of students increasing. In addition, the organization needs new equipment as well as promotion. All this entails increases in cost. According to Lemoine, SYB’s annual cost in 2013 was 1.7 million RMB, 500 thousand RMB more than in 2012. In other words, SYB needs more funds. However, an organization in its sixth year of existence cannot depend on sponsorship alone, because supportive foundations tend to sponsor new projects.
Thus, SYB registered a company as a social enterprise in 2011, selling baking courses and food services to support its project. Furthermore, SYB brings the trainees to Jiashan Market, Metro Town, etc each weekend to sell their baked goods. The income from bread sales and commercial services goes into the training project. Last year, this income covered 20% of SYB’s annual costs, while the remaining 80% was sponsored by the Carrefour Foundation, Accor Foundation and Lesaffre. “Our goal is to cover 25% of the annual cost by ourselves this year and increase the percentage gradually each year. In the long term, we hope to cover 50% with our income as a social enterprise.” Says Lemoine.
However, going commercial has its own problems. As yet, the equipment in SYB’s baking centre hasn’t reached the standard required for a food production certificate, so SYB’s baked goods are sold to individuals or companies, i.e. sales based on trust. In other words, SYB cannot supply cafes or bakeries on a larger scale and a more regular basis. Furthermore, SYB’s baking centre is far from the city centre, which adds to the difficulties in promoting its baking lessons.
Despite all the difficulties, Lemoine, Xiao and all the other team members of SYB are full of hope for the future. They all dream that someday in Shanghai there will be a cafe named Shanghai Young Bakers, in which bread made by the trainees is sold and graduates of the project are employed.
(Translated by Zhou Yang)
“烘焙出一个未来”
5月11日这天是周日，上海的天空飘着细雨。前来参加中国国际焙烤展的法国最佳面点师Pascal Tepper却无暇关注这天气，一下飞机，他就赶往海上青焙坊(Shanghai Young Bakers SYB)在普陀区绥德路的烘焙中心。在那里，这位翘着两撇可爱胡子的烘焙大师花了5个小时，为28位因公益机缘进入烘焙领域的学员详细演示了布里奥等十几种面包的制作过程，并在面包烘烤的间隙，耐心地答疑解惑。
海上青焙坊是12名法国志愿者在2008年发起的一个公益项目，为来自困难家庭的青年提供为期一年的免费法式烘焙培训，帮助他们在毕业后能够得到更合适的就业机会并自力更生。现在，海上青焙坊每年会接收20~30名学员。学员由合作NGO推荐的学员，然后，海上青焙坊会从健康状况、年龄阶段、家庭背景、文化程度、学习动机和对烘焙的热情等方面对学员进行面试。
在为期一年的培训中，学员的时间通常这样安排：每个月里，两个星期学习理论知识，两个星期在星级酒店、烘焙房或面包房里实习。此外，海上青焙坊还会不定期地邀请像Pascal Tepper这样资深烘焙师来给学员授课，今年已经是Pascal Tepper第六次到给海上青焙坊来给学生做演示。
毕业后，学员会进入酒店、烘焙房、饼房、面包房等地方工作。据海上青焙坊的项目经理林兰介绍，从2009年2月启动第一期培训开始到现在，已有近100名学员从海上青焙坊的烘焙中心毕业，其中，70%以上的学员在就业时选择成为了一名烘焙师。
学而优则教 如果六年前，有人跟肖金金说，几年后你可以到法国学习烘焙，她肯定会觉得这是天方夜谭。但命运就是如此神奇，三年后，她不仅成为了法国奥里亚克烘焙学校（EFBPA）的学生，还在半年里拿到了法式烘焙技能证书C.A.P.。如今，她已经是一名拥有近三年培训经验的烘焙老师，而这一切的发生，正是源于海上青焙坊。
2008年，高中毕业的肖金金想要学习烘焙，却发现提供这项培训的技校学费都不低。后来，通过智行基金会的推荐，她成为了海上青焙坊第一期学员。最初，海上青焙坊的培训周期只有6个月（从第二期学员开始，培训周期调整为1年），但半年后，肖金金发现自己还渴望了解更多的烘焙知识，于是，她留了下来，和第二期学员在一起，继续学习。一直到2010年8月，经过一年半的学习与沉淀，肖金金已经从烘焙新手成长为一名合格的烘焙师。这时候，她也等来了一个机会。
作为一个志愿者发起的项目，在2010年以前，海上青焙坊没有一名全职工作人员，也没有自己的烘焙老师。前三期学员的课程是由乐斯福的烘焙师来教授的。但是，作为一个想要持续发展的培训项目，机构没有自己的培训师，绝对是硬伤。所以，在项目启动的第二年，海上青焙坊开始着手解决这个问题：挑选优秀的学员，送往法国深造。
经过半年的法语学习，肖金金和张政海、王莉（另外两名第一期毕业学员）被送到EFBPA，更进一步学习传统法式烘焙知识。2011年8月，三人学成回到上海，开始担任海上青焙坊烘焙中心的老师，同时，也迎来了第四期学员。如今，肖金金已经在烘焙中心任教近3年，这个夏天，她的两名学生——张帅和金会子——会像三年前的她一样，到法国进修。
不过，像肖金金这种“学而优则教”的模式毕竟不是海上青焙坊学员们毕业后的主流就业方式，大多数的学员毕业后还是要自己去找工作。林兰解释说，海上青焙坊虽然不会安排学员的工作，但每一期学员的毕业典礼上，它都会同时举行一个招聘会，邀请上海的一些酒店、餐厅、面包房到现场介绍一些工作机会，学员可以当场面试。
此外，为了提高学员的就业竞争力，从项目启动开始，海上青焙坊就和上海曹杨职校合作，由曹杨职校为学员提供文化课程以及亚洲面点课程的培训。通过这种方式，学员最终可以获得相应的文凭和由上海劳动局颁发的西式面点师专业技能证书。这两个证书对于他们的就业有很大帮助。另外，学员们在整个培训期间的住宿，也由曹杨职校支持。
人不能少，钱也不能少 发展至今，海上青焙坊的团队模式经历了三个阶段：全志愿模式；一个全职员工加志愿者的模式，以及现在的核心项目团队加上志愿者团队的模式。
无疑，志愿者在海上青焙坊的这个机构中扮演着非常重要的角色，不管是最初的12名法国志愿者还是现在超过200人的志愿者团队。但不可否认，志愿者本身的流动性从某种程度上会影响到项目稳定和持续。所以，在2010年，海上青焙坊选择挂靠智行基金会，由基金会选择一个全职人员来负责整个项目。
但林兰认为，中国很多NGO的问题是过于依靠一个人，通常是创始人，如果这个人离开了，机构或者项目就有可能难以为继。在她看来，机构的运营需要一个团队来进行。因此，在2011年开始负责运营海上青焙坊后，林兰的工作重心之一就是充实项目团队。
目前，海上青焙坊有10名内部工作人员，团队的架构也有了雏形，项目经理统筹、全职烘焙师授课、生活老师辅导（从去年开始，海上青焙坊安排了全职生活老师，照顾学员们在曹杨职校的学习与生活），另有专人或实习生负责市场推广、媒体、行政、财务、设计、合作伙伴建立等工作。
除了团队，另一个大问题就是资金，尤其是海上青焙坊目前正处于一个上升阶段，团队在扩大、学员在增加、机构要推广、设备要采购，所有这些都意味着绝对成本的增加。林兰透露，2013年，海上青焙坊的运营费用大约是170万，比2012年增加了50万左右。
换言之，现在的海上青焙坊其实需要更多的资金投入。但是，对于一个已经走到第6年的机构，还一味依赖赞助已经不够现实。因为，支持的基金会更倾向于将资金投给新的项目，也希望项目能够自立。因此，海上青焙坊在2011年底注册成立了“海上青焙坊管理咨询(上海)有限公司”，以社会企业的概念，对外提供包括烘焙和西点课程、餐饮服务、公司团队培训在内的一系列商业服务。此外，海上青焙坊的学员每周都会到嘉善老市、玫瑰坊等一些集市上出售他们的烘焙作品。
不管是面包销售还是对外服务，所得收入则用于支持烘焙培训项目。去年，这部分收入占到海上青焙坊运营成本的20%，余下的80%仍由家乐福基金会、雅高基金会及乐斯福来支持。“我们希望今年能够达到25%，然后每年能够慢慢地增加这个比例，长期的话，希望是50%（社会企业的收入）和50%（赞助）。”林兰说。
不过，做商业有做商业烦恼。因为目前的烘焙中心在一些硬件配置上没有办法达到办理食品生产许可证的要求，所以，海上青焙坊的产品现在主要还是出售给一些公司或个人，是一种基于信任的销售行为，也就是说，它的产品没有办法批量供应给另一家咖啡馆或者面包房。另外，海上青焙坊的烘焙中心离市区较远，这也给烘焙课程的推广增加了一定困难。
但不管是林兰还是肖金金或者其他的海上青焙坊成员，他们对机构的未来都充满了信心。他们都梦想着未来有一天，上海会有一家叫“海上青焙坊”的咖啡馆，咖啡馆里出售的是自己制作的面包，聘请的是自己的学员。