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In September and November of last year, Mike Rogers, Meghan Shea and I spent nearly two weeks at Sala Bai Hotel & Restaurant School in Siem Reap creating documentary photography and film about the positive work the organization is doing for Cambodia's disadvantaged youth.
As outlined in one of my previous posts, for nearly ten years now Sala Bai has been offering tuition-free hospitality training to 100 impoverished young people annually. Sala Bai's mission is to provide their students with the capabilities and experience necessary -- in one of four disciplines: restaurant service, cooking, front office and housekeeping -- to secure gainful employment in one of Siem Reap's numerous luxury hotels, guesthouses or restaurants. These skills, and the resulting economic independence, not only improves the students' quality of life, but those of their families as well.
Like many NGO's, Sala Bai relies heavily on the generosity and support of private donations and corporate benefactors to fund it's operating expenses and help meet it's financial obligations. In the spirit of this, the Southeast Asian edition of Travel + Leisure magazine has donated six full-page advertisements to Sala Bai over the course of 2012. The first advertisement -- featuring a portrait I made of Sala Bai student Srey Mao -- appears in the January 2012 issue of Travel+Leisure. The ad reads as follows:
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Village to Vocation.
A Victory Against Human Trafficking.
Meet Srey Mao from Kra Yatbong. Her family lives on less that $25 per month. In July, she will graduate earning more than three times that amount.
A good reason to smile.
In 9 years, the non-profit Sala Bai Hotel & Restaurant School in Siem Reap, Cambodia has graduated 803 young men and women from our yearlong vocational training program. Without fail, each has been employed within three months of graduation. To learn more about how you can help, please email us at info@salabai.com or visit us at www.salabai.com or www.facebook.com/SalaBaiSchool.
If you would like to make a donation to Sala Bai, please click here.
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