Countless people the world over frequent bakeries. In China, several “special” bakeries have opened in recent years. How are they special? The bakeries have a common objective: To create employment for handicapped people and disadvantaged individuals. Of course, the bakeries specialize in producing tasty loaves of bread, cakes and cookies.
坐落在大街小巷的面包房，是人们生活中经常光顾的地方。而你可知道，在中国，一些面包房不仅致力于烹制出喷香可口的面包和点心，还将经营者的爱心善意融入其中，帮助着一些有特殊需求的人群。
Learning a Skill 让“苦孩子”有一技之长
Many Chinese children, especially from poor, rural families, have to quit school to work so they can help support their families. “They generally do not receive training in professional skills, which can help them earn decent incomes. When the Shanghai Young Bakers was founded, in 2008, the founders decided the program, which involved training, would help children from impoverished families obtain valuable skills that would benefit them throughout their lives,” says Floriane Lemoine, the program’s manager.
Six years ago, 12 volunteers from the French Junior Economic Chamber, in Shanghai, founded Shanghai Young Bakers (SYB). The cofounders included businesspeople, artists and housewives. They had one goal: To launch a program that would help Chinese children from impoverished families. They noticed that Western-style baked goods, such as bread and cakes, were popular in Shanghai. They also noticed the city, with 15-million-plus residents, had few bakeries that could produce top-quality, French-style baked goods. They decided to teach young Chinese how to bake French-style goods.
Training began in February 2009; some 16 people (aged 17-23), from Shanghai No. 2 Welfare House, attended the course — for free. Wang Li, 23, from central China’s Henan Province, was one of the participants. Wang, from a single-parent family, moved to Dongguan (in southern China’s Guangdong Province) when she was 16. She once worked in a factory that manufactured toys.
“I felt like I was working like a machine in that factory,” Wang recalls. “But the baking course I took in 2009 was much more interesting … Our teacher, Loic Ledru, asked me to make a loaf of bread, in any shape I liked. I made the dough into a ‘little mouse’ and put it into the oven. To my surprise, the ‘little mouse’ baked into a big, round loaf of bread. It looked so funny.”
During the course, Wang learned how to leaven the dough before baking a loaf of bread. She gradually developed an interest in making French-style baked goods. With support from SYB, she was able (in 2010) to take a seven-month course at a baking school in France. Now, Wang, a teacher, helps train people under SYB’s program.
During the past six years, nearly 100 children from poor families, from across China, have graduated from SYB’s courses. In Shanghai, many schools provide training in Western-style baking; however, most of the schools tend to teach students how to bake fancy-looking cakes, rather than ordinary loaves of bread. Many hotels and bakeries in Shanghai need bakers who can make ordinary, tasty loaves of bread. Graduates of SYB’s program can meet their needs. “Many enterprises have offered jobs to our students. Each student usually has two or three options (about which enterprise he/she will work for) before graduation,” says Lemoine.
Students who receive support from SYB generally cherish the opportunity to learn baking skills, which enable them to earn reasonable incomes. The students work hard during the courses, and SYB staff hope to teach something more than baking skills. “We follow classes not only in traditional French baking, we also teach our students English and life skills,” Lemoine says.
Every month, the students attend classes for two weeks, and they participate in internships, for two weeks, during which they work for hotels, where they learn to bake various types of French breads. The hotels’ chefs are often amazed by the skills of SYB’s students. Many of SYB’s graduates have found jobs in top-level hotels in Shanghai. Some of the grads have returned to their hometowns to open their own bakeries.
As most of SYB’s cofounders have left Shanghai — due to work-related reasons — the program in 2010 was handed over to the Chi Heng Foundation (a charity registered and based in Hong Kong, with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Anhui and Henan), to guarantee the program’s continued development.
With sponsorship from Carrefour Foundation, Accor Hotels Group and several other French companies, and with support from Shanghai Charity Foundation, a multicultural team now manages SYB’s program. Some bakers from France, who have moved to Shanghai for work, have been invited to teach SYB’s students how to bake. They volunteer with SYB.
At present, SYB has six full-time staff (including three teachers) members. Every three years, SYB recommends two or three of its students to attend professional training courses in France. After they complete the courses, they return to Shanghai to work as SYB’s teachers.
What is SYB’s development plan? At least 30 students will receive training every year. Administrators of SYB are looking for ways to collaborate with other charities in China, so they can provide baking classes to help handicapped individuals earn a living, Lemoine says.