This year’s vocational training at the Bohol Deaf Academy has gone to a whole new level. Every Wednesday and Friday our High School students are getting the opportunity to learn job skills that will help them to find employment for summer jobs and hopefully long term employment after they graduate. Part of the training for the Food & Beverage class has included the opportunity to help set up for events at our Dao Diamond Hotel. They have assisted with Weddings, Birthday Parties, and a myriad of other events. Hand pinning every pleat takes a lot of patience, good math skills and creativity to get it to come out correctly. As much as they have enjoyed the opportunity to work at the Dao Diamond, they really wanted to see what it was like to work at one of the larger beach resorts on neighboring Panglao Island.
The great thing about living on an island is that everybody knows everybody, so it only takes asking a few people before an opportunity presents itself. On September 26 the Rotary Club of Panglao held a Fund Raising Dinner at the Linaw Beach Resort. In cooperation with IDEA they allowed our Food & Beverage vocational class to come and show off their skills and do the set up for the event. Several of the students even got to help in the kitchen with food prep. When asked how they communicated they said they just used pencil and paper and it went fine. It was a great chance for the resort staff to see how easy it would be to have deaf staff working for them.
They also graciously allowed our Performing Arts Team to come and present some of their native folk dances. The guests were amazed at how well they performed not being able to hear the music. They allowed Cleza, our school Administrator to take a few minutes to share about the work that is done at IDEA to meet the needs of impoverished deaf children. It was a wonderful opportunity for the students to see how things are done in other hotels and restaurants and great for the Performing Arts team to have another audience to perform in front of. Most importantly it gave our students a chance to show people that being deaf doesn’t stop them from being valuable members of society.
A BIG THANK YOU to Rotary Club of Panglao Island and Linaw Beach Resort for this memorable opportunity.