Project Dignity

24/1

Three people down with flu. This is important when you are dealing with food and critical when it involves people with disabilities. They have to rest.

KH and QA training is not as easy. There are three primary role in a hawker stall - cooking, serving and cashier. The most difficult for the two of them is cashier's role. They are good with the POS machine and to them it is like a gaming console. Their weakness is their sense of money. They cannot differentiate and do simple arithmetic. In terms of differentiation they can differentiate the dollars notes but not the coins. Addition and subtraction is difficult when you cannot differentiate the coins and as a hawker you need to do it and do it fast. We innovate in terms of teaching aids to help them. For the money issues we went back to basic and use hands and fingers to teach. For the arithmetic we use forks and spoons, one spoon or fork is 5 cents and two is 10 cents. Later we progress to division and multiplication using trays and fork/spoon. We even got the other hawkers to help out. Both KH and QA have to use cash to buy their food, not allow to use cards purchased from the Centre management. The ladies at the drink stalls even took time off to teach boys when they buy the drinks.

Last day for V and R. They are our first dropouts. Two reasons. One is hawker work is not for everyone and two is that they did not tell us about his epileptic fits. It will be difficult to be in a hawker environment when you have fits. My learning from this episode in terms of training is that better managing of people with disabilities especially those who suffered their disabilities when they were abled at one time. If you are born blind from young you do not experience the sighted world and hence you cope with the disability. When you however are disabled in your 20's or 30's, there is a phase of acceptance and training have to be very different, more time consuming. It remind of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Dying - Denial / Anger / Bargaining / Depression / Acceptance

25/1

Looking at the accounts. There a state of equilibrium when the outlay/spending balance off with the income generated. If you draw a graph of money(vertical axis) vs time (horizontal axis), the curve of your investment will keep falling until a stage where the curve will stablise around a certain figure- this is the state of equilibrium. From this stage you have to make the curve goes upward. This mean that your business entity is generating a reasonable income. You are still bleeding but at least it is slower. Not hemorrhaging :-)

28/1

Chinese New Year coming, it is time to thanks many people who has help us from the beginning. Bought several boxes of oranges and barbecue pork and personally deliver to those people who has help us.

Conducted the interview for elderly for this next batch of students. In the selection of these students (unlike the intellectually challenged), the main criteria is attitude. Not experience or age. Interview of 11 elderly ranging from 60 yr old to 82 yr old. How do you tell attitude? It is the way they ask question - the mindset of wanting to learn more and the willingness to work on it. I am not worried if the question centers around money as I believe I pay better than McDonald. They do not want to work shift, want to work with friends, the travel distance cannot be too far...... selected 2 out of the 11 for the next batch

30/1

Team building is not a one off event of climbing trees and felling off into the trusted arms of your colleague. Cheapest is dinner celebration like christmas lunch and reunion dinner. Treat your employee like family.

Project Dignity

10/1

Not so good news, the government agency does not see the need for a hawker training centre and will be difficult to support. I will have to think of another way to get the training center approved. We have people interested to come to come for hawker training but only if there is a subsidy from the government agency.

11/1

Batch 1 recruitment starts with an newspaper article and over 300 telephone enquiries. In the first batch with have a wide spectrum of students with various disabilities and challenges - single mother, blind, long term unemployed, ex-prisoner, elderly, polio et al. All in the adult group

For batch 2 we decided to work with children with disabilities.

I made a visit to Movement of the Intellectually Disabled (MIND) school and interviewed the students. Selected two students from MINDs with learning disability. The interview was not so much the talking or question and answers but more to see them working and performing tasks. The first student KH is the head prefect and he was tasked to moved some speakers to the main hall. The second student QA was tasked to collect some keys from one person to another. There was another two kids I met but not so appropriate for Dignity Kitchen at the moment. I was looking for Social skills, able to Articulate and Mobility in action, we term it as SAM approach.

I met with QA's mother in the interview. I have come to understand that to recruit children with disability, it is always wise to interview the mother first. Why? Firstly to explain to the parent but more importantly to get the support of the parents in working together for the program to succeed

17/1

Today KH report to class. Very quiet and reserve the first few hours. It has to do with the strange place. The mother was present and we have to sent her back. No distraction.

We did our normal orientation briefing. Then by lunch time he starts hugging me and rest of the trainers and later the elderly that comes for lunch. Initially it was not worrying but when he starts hugging complete strangers, I was concern. I called the vice principal for advise. One of his school teacher spoke to him Eventually we compromise that he is not allow to hug anyone other than the few trainers and if he wants to to hug he can lean his head on their shoulder. According to the teacher, KH hugs partly because of affection but also for insecurity in a strange place and meeting strangers, performing different tasks.

18/1

There was an invite to a networking function tonight. Surprising many people have heard of Dignity Kitchen and the story of the blind hawker. This is good. We do not have advertising budget and any publicity is good for us.

I finished all the Dignity Kitchen names cards in one evening. By the end of the day, I realise that to sell Dignity Kitchen one need to see it in operation. Not so easy to explain. people needs to watch the lunch treat,the disabled cooking and serving and participation of the sponsors.

20/1

QA starts work today and my fear was the way he speaks, very gangster like. Something he needs to change.

I estimate that in the last few months, the lost is averaging $1000 per day or there about. Am I worried, the answer is Yes. There is no turning back. It will depend on starting the education side of the business.With government agency approval as a training center and able to tap government training grant for the courses, I will be able to breakeven soon.

Till today I still have no business plan, just a cash flow projection but this is slow at the moment as I under estimate the volume of business when I design the chart of account for Dignity Kitchen. November and December 2010 accounts is till not updated. I know I am losing money but just not sure the exact losses......

Project Dignity

3/1

Walk into the school today and spend some time cleaning up the classroom.

Just dawn on me that everything in the classroom is second hand. The chairs which are mismatch is complimentary from a scrap dealer. Preferred somethingwith a writing board. In the classroom there is an electronic whiteboard and a white screen from my old office. The projector is from my manager's previous office. There is also a rack from a factory clearance. Cost of setting up is minimal.

Start of the new year and my first mistake for the year is that I have no cook...... Of the 11 in batch 1, two will be back to the Deaf Association to work, two will be going to Resort World, one is going to Wendy's and one will be starting on his own.

We started with another blind man V and his wife R. In this case love is great. R sacrifice her career to help her blind husband to work together. They must spend the next two weeks getting used to the place.

The OCD did not turn up. What a blessing

6/1

An ugly incident today at the dessert stall.

The stout looking man stood at the dessert stall and shouted at my ex-cancer boy. "I gave you $10 and this is the wrong change." the ex-cancer boy looks lost for word and could only stare at the man. "Give me the change NOW" The man continued. The ex-cancer boy replied timidly "It was a $5, you gave me."

The commotion caught my attention and I approached the stout looking man. Something tell me that my ex cancer boy is right and it was a $5 note that he was given. I got a feeling that the man is trying to cheat my ex-cancer boy whose memory following a brain operation is very low. I trust my ex-cancer boy.

I turn towards the man and said "If it is a $10 I will apologizes and the food is free, If not I will request that you move on and we shall forget this incident" I pointed towards a camera that is at the top of the stall.

The face of the stout looking man suddenly changed and he turn and walk away without uttering a word. I open the cashier machine and noticed that there was no $10 note.

Why do people cheats on people with disabilities?