Visiting Canadian Chefs

CESO (Canadian Executive Service Organization)teamed up with IDEA this February to help improve the food and service of IDEA’s various restaurant businesses.  Altogether the two Garden Cafes and Dao Diamond Hotel employ 14 deaf  cooks and bakers.  Some of these cooks have been working with us for almost 30 years and although they are quite proficient, there still is a great need to upgrade their knowledge and to keep our menus fresh in order to continue attracting the customers.  For this reason Dennis Drake put in an application with CESO for two well qualified Canadian chefs to come to Bohol to provide training for our staff.

The two chefs that volunteer turned out to both be retired award winning professionals who possess amazing amounts of knowledge and even more so, both are seasoned educators having taught for years in prestigious cooking schools in various countries around the word.  We at IDEA felt so fortunate to have been assigned such wonderfully qualified men who had such big hearts and were willing to share their skills with our Deaf.

Chef Bryan with the IDEA Pension House Staff 

Chef Ralph with the Garden Cafe Tagbilaran Staff

Chef Bryan Fordham was assigned in our operation at the IDEA Pension House / Garden Cafe Jagna, Bohol.  Chef Bryan’s specialty is pastries, cakes, and breads but also worked extensively with the manager in helping solve some of the operational problems.  Chef Ralph Graham was assigned in Dao Diamond Hotel and Garden Cafe, Tagbilaran City, Bohol.  His specialties were more on main dishes and sauces.  He also worked extensively with the management on helping them with some of the issues of kitchen operations and menu selections.

It was such a great pleasure having these two men with us for three weeks.  Although they really only scratched the surface in that short time, they really stirred the pot so to speak and got our cooks and bakers looking at new possibilities in types of food and revitalized the IDEA staff.  It was a good thing.

A big thank you to Chef Bryan and Chef Ralph of giving so freely of your time and talents and also to Mr. Matt Navalta (Philippines Country Director for CESO) and the citizens of Canada for making this assignment possible.

Kitchen Crew at Dao	Ralph, Dennis, Bryan	Chef’s Table Tasting
Chef Bryan	See Bohol Sights	Chefs and Snakes

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A New Hotel Theme

We recently discovered that one of IDEA’s deaf carpentry employees has an amazing ability at sculpting.  Because our Dao Diamond Hotel has changed its motif to Polynesian it was thought that we needed a Tiki or two around to add to the atmosphere so Arnold the carpenter was given a small photo to go by and asked come up with a 10 foot statue that would be fun for the customer.  Because of the wet weather issues we decided to ask him to make it out of concrete and this is what he is coming up with.  It really is quite an amazing talent.

It is not yet quite finished.  When completed it will look as though it is carved out of wood.

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Micro House in Bohol

The economy has always been tough on the island of Bohol.  Although it is improving it is still nearly impossible for the average wage earner to put enough money together to put a down payment on a home or to even qualify for a loan.  Yes, this sounds like the same story all over the world but this is especially true for the Deaf living on this island and elsewhere in the Philippines.

IDEA Philippines employs around 120 deaf adults in its various (EIGPs) Employment / Income Generating Projects and most of them are required to join a government housing loan program.  The challenge has been to come up with a house and property that would fit their budget and ability to make monthly mortgage payments.  We have finally come up with a micro home that fits their incomes.  It is a micro house or can be thought of as a starter home.  The house design has been approved by the government for loans and it seems that the road is now clear to begin mass producing these structures.

The homes are built in our IDEA shop by our deaf carpenters.  We are not able to go down to a Home Depot and buy the lumber.  Instead we have to order the lumber rough cut by chainsaw and then bring it into our shop to mill it down to ship-lap siding and studs.  It is a very labor and equipment intensive effort.  The homes are then either built in knockdown form or totally assembled and delivered to the building site on a trailer or truck.

Thanks to our friend Andy Cohen who has funded this project to honor is father, we are now in the process of setting up the Cohen Village I.  We hope to be able to set up 10 to 15 home on a piece of property already owned by IDEA Philippines.

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