Sunday Times FOOD & DRINK
CHEF SCHOOL
DIRECTORY
So you want to be a chef? Make sure you choose a school that fits your need Simamkele Twani is on the road to becoming an established chef despite being deaf
The training HTA SCHOOL OF CULINARY ART
BRIGHT FUTURES A chef-training programme developed for the hard-of-hearing provides new career possibilities
T
hree years ago Nancy Gaylard, director of Not Just Consulting and former training manager at the Protea Hotel Balalaika in Sandton, started to investigate the option of training hard-of-hearing chefs. She discovered that St Vincent School for the Deaf was teaching its learners skills such as photography, hairdressing and cooking through City and Guilds programmes, to help them to become employable. Gaylard jumped at the opportunity to be involved and decided to see how the learners would fare in a commercial kitchen. “They fitted in perfectly,” she says, “so we immediately formed a relationship with the school and haven’t looked back.” The relationship has resulted in a sponsored programme that has seen five deaf chefs trained so far. The course involves either a one-year chef programme, run by the HTA School of Culinary Art, or a three-year hotel management programme run by the University of Johannesburg’s School of Tourism and Hospitality. Not only do learners emerge from the course with a recognised qualification, but they are also given the opportunity to work at the hotel that sponsored them. Stephen Billingham, director of HTA and president of the South African Chefs Association, feels strongly about the programme’s potential, not least of all due to the commitment shown by the learners. “So few deaf people are able to find employment, so the youngsters really want to seize this opportunity.” Gaylard adds that deaf learners have fewer distractions than hearing learners, which means their production in the kitchen is much greater. “They often make the hearing staff look slow.” — Roberta Thatcher
For more information about the course go to www.htachefschool.co.za
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LifeStyle | Food & Drink
29•10•2017
Sunday Times
IMAGE: ALAISTER RUSSELL
2017