As rough as the pandemic was on tourism in Cambodia, local NGOs were practically decimated between 2020 and 2022. Many foreign-run non-profits fill in the gaps for the underserved in Cambodia; during the pandemic, many either closed up shop or pivoted their organization to survive in those lean times.
EGBOK Mission was one of those that faced hard choices in 2020. Established in 2009 as a U.S.-registered non-profit, EGBOK Mission saw funding dry up; the board decided to close down the charity in December 2020. However, EGBOK’s Cambodian team, led by its present executive director Sophany Mao, was unwilling to stop providing the services that had already helped hundreds of students get a leg up in the hospitality industry.
The Cambodian team reformed EGBOK into a 100% locally-owned NGO named Spoons Cambodia Organization, which continues EGBOK’s work with disadvantaged youth. The Organization runs Spoons Cafe and Restaurant in Siem Reap, which helps train the Organization’s students and is a tourist destination in its own right.
We talked to Ms. Mao about the transition from EGBOK to Spoons, and how the company sustains its work to the present.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Could you tell us a little about Spoons Cambodia Organization and its mission?
Spoons Cambodia Organization provides disadvantaged young adults from different provinces, helping them get higher education or training, so they have an opportunity to get jobs securely and quickly in the job market.
Our students undergo our one-year program, with concentrations in cooking, food and beverage service, and housekeeping. The program includes English classes, computer literacy, training in life skills, job placement training, environmental awareness, and even community activities – all to provide them with knowledge that can inspire them and help them continue to set up their lives well.
Could you tell us about Spoons Restaurant and Cafe? What role does it serve in your mission?
The Cafe and Restaurant itself has three main purposes. One, it provides a training facility and multipurpose space for our students. Two, it’s a space for our community and partners, where they can come here for meetings, for seminars or other workshops.
And three, it supports sustainability regarding our financial situation. We think that Spoons Cafe and Restaurant is the key to support Spoons Organization: so we can serve longer, using our own resources.
The restaurant is a major part of our sustainability – helping us generate income, instead of only asking money from donors. We are open six days a week, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed only on Monday. We also do catering outside the restaurant, and host meetings in our restaurant as well. 100% of our profits go to Spoons Cambodia Organization, to use in our learning center.
We make sure our guests feel excited with our service, feel comfortable with our building, with our food, and also feel inspired with our cause and motivated to donate for our future generations.
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred the transition from EGBOK Mission to Spoons Organization. What motivated you to keep going, despite the difficulties created by the pandemic?
For our Cambodia team members, we could not see a future where we lost both Spoons and EGBOK, because we were making a difference: we support 50 students every year, at the end of the year we can see they’re smiling, more confident.100% of them graduate from schools without dropouts, and they can get jobs successfully. We hear good things from hotel partners and from employers that hire our students. They are special.
Spoons and EGBOK were responsible for them. So when funding ran low during the pandemic, our team and I, we thought that we should do something. We could either minimize the project, or we could close the project altogether.
So you chose to minimize or downscale the project instead?
Yes. Instead of recruiting 50 students, we recruited only ten students for our program, to run our Spoons Cafe and Restaurant together, and our team decided to drop their salary rate to 60% of their full pay, 40%, and then even more. They were teaching during the day and then they run the restaurant during the night time.
We also negotiated with our rent; our landlord is so kind. He said, “That’s okay. Just continue and let us know how much you can afford to give us.” We’re so grateful for their support.
When our network and our community learned that Spoons is still existing, they supported us. They would bring locals to dine with us; normally tourists are our main clients, but during COVID 19, local people came to support us because they know that we have a good cause behind us.
Why is Spoons’ mission so important?
The most important part of our business is the impact we make on our communities. It’s something I think about, as a person who wants to be a role model for young Cambodians.
Our young adults really need skills and mentors to help them set their goals. That’s why I believe we need to bring young adults to our training center to help them visualize their goals, what they would like to achieve their lives.
We help even the alumni, we never leave them behind. We have 480 alumni who still need our support. We help them to reach leadership positions, if they would like to upgrade. It’s our role to continue to support them, and we need funding for this as well.
Do you have any alumni success stories to share? Do your alumni stop by and say hello?
Yes! Some are HR managers, or in senior roles in food and beverage for hotels. They always come here to support Spoons Cafe – they bring their families, they bring their friends, and it excites me to see them here and still continue to support us.
Your Restaurant and Cafe runs on sustainable principles; can you tell me a little about them?
We think that Spoons should recycle and compost where possible. We donate the unused food scrap to the local farmers to be used for animal feed. And as you know that in Cambodia we have many tourists coming: 4.6 million water bottles were discarded in Cambodia by tourists every month, before COVID-19.
So it’s our responsibility as Cambodians and also as part of the tourism sector to support sustainability. One, we don’t use plastic, and so we use recycled products at our restaurant.
We also grow herbs and vegetables at our garden, to be a part of our student learning. We can we can use compost from the restaurant to grow our vegetables and herbs. And then we bring some herbs, vegetables and fruit from our garden to the kitchen.
Has the Cafe and Restaurant successfully provided the funding you need to carry on your work for the long term?
At the moment, we can’t say that we are fully sustainable by running the Spoons Cafe Restaurant. After COVID, not everything is secure yet, but it is our long-term goal to be fully sustainable. We would like at least 40% of our Spoons Cambodia Organization budget to come from Spoons Cafe Restaurant’s profit. So this is our commitment in the future.
We also would like to secure more donor support. We have the capacity to train 50 students per year – to reach that number, we need to bring more donors, allowing us to have more students. Currently we we have only 20 students – one student costs about US$3,000 to train. This covers one year’s accommodation, transportation, uniform, and vocational training.
You know what happened in this year and last year? We can serve only 20 students, but 150 students applied!
Now that travel has has returned, has the financial picture improved?
For Spoons, during 2022, people expect that we can do only like break even. I remember, in 2021, sometimes we earned only $5 per day. In 2022. We hope to raise more funds to continue into 2023.
Spoons Cambodia Organization needs your help to continue its mission – if you’re ready to help out, click here to find out how you can contribute.
