Training restaurant in Mozambique, 10.000 Euro

De Teran Foundation, started by the best-selling author Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, is working on creating a better future for the people of the poor and isolated villages of the Cabaceira Grande, in the district of Missuril in Mozambique.

This beautiful but poor area offers a lot of opportunities for income-generating activities, as long as the local people get help in setting up several "businesses". The first goal is starting a luxury ecolodge that will attract tourists and offer direct and indirect employment. Since no-one in the area has any experience with high-end (on any end for that matter) hotels or restaurants, the Teran Foundation set up a College of Tourism to train future employees. The authorities have allowed the foundation to use one of the old historic buildings (the former Naval Academy). The College is in full swing and the first batch of student is being trained by volunteers from AIESEC. 

The partly renovated Naval Academy 

Part of the training is of course getting some experience. This is difficult since there are no hotels or restaurant in this district. Therefore it would be very useful to build a training restaurant next to the college in the village. 
In this village of 2.800 people it will provide a social centre point where there is currently none. It will provide skills and training to between 50-100 students per year from the college for tourism and make the difference for them in actually getting employed in luxury tourism or not. 

By giving the students hands-on practice, they can cope with a real restaurant much more easily. The College can earn money by charging NGOs for food and drink at the restaurant: this money will help pay for more students (there is a big queue of potential students waiting to join).
Because the restaurant also has a captive clientele of international volunteers living at the College, all of whom eat there daily; it can guarantee visible positive results within the year. It may take some time to attract visitors from beyond the village, but all villagers will get discounted (cost) prices. And those guests will eat their first restaurant-meal in their life. 

Location 
The restaurant will be built adjacent to an existing outside wall of the College building with a hatch to the kitchen, which will remain inside the College building. Deck will be 0.50 m above ground level to give small animals an ecological pass way and to give natural cooling of the floor.
The kitchen will be situated inside the existing College building. Adjacent to the kitchen there will be a secure store room approx 3m x 5m.

Style 
The overall construction impression is: Made by Nature. Stilts are made of trees, roof construction from Sisal beams with mangrove layers and macuti finishing. All connections will be made from sisal and recycled car tire strings and wooden pens to prevent corrosion by salt see wind. The deck will be polished with beeswax. On the roof there will be bamboo gutters integrated to collect rainwater. 

Utilities 
Electricity: will be by 2 x HP Photovoltaic solar power kit. Extra photovoltaic panels will be integrated in the macuti roof. There will eventually be back-up electricity from the district grid.
Water supply: water will be supplied from an existing well beside the kitchen. Refuse: All organic refuse will be recycled as compost; non bio-degradable refuse will be minimized and transported from the site. 
Gas: Will be bought in exchangeable cylinders, currently only available 200km in Nampula. The College will seek to bring the supply of these cylinders closer.

Cuisine 
To begin with, the food served will be exclusively the very simple local recipes based entirely around fish, manioc, rice, coconut with only onions, tomatoes and garlic as condiments.
However, the quality of the seafood is excellent so as the college vegetable gardens go into production, the menus will become a more sophisticated fusion of the basic local cuisine and Portuguese recipes. 

Market Garden and poultry farm 
The first initiative of the College of Agriculture's farm will be to plant and run a market garden with all the vegetables and salads necessary to make the staff and students of the college self-sufficient.
To this end, plots of approx one hectare will be fenced in with bamboo and planted with diverse salads and vegetables. 
Each one-hectare site will eventually be irrigated with de-salinated water. However, a pilot plot has been planted in January 2004 and will be irrigated by an existing shallow well with a solar pump.
Simultaneously, a poultry farm will be established.

Drinks 
The College will seek a license to serve alcohol. Meanwhile, it will serve soft drinks. It is seeking sponsorship from a Mozambican soft drink and also a Mozambican beer franchise.

Lisa St. Aubin personally supports the College of Tourism and Teran Foundation, both in functioning as CEO and financially. There are other organisations that are willing to support other areas, e.g. agriculture and the operational costs of the college, and the foundation found (yes?) private investors for the lodge, that will open in the spring of 2006. 

The training restaurant cost 10.000 Euro. 

Total € 10000,-- 

adopted by the general fund of Moments of Joy

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