A coffee bar for disabled children

They are brought under the same roof with the help of teacher Nguyen Ho Chau Linh.

The unique coffee bar for disabled children opened in Da Lat city late last year, offering disabled children from the Hoa Phong Lan School in Da Lat, Lam Dong province o­n the job training as waiters and waitresses. Teacher Nguyen Ho Chau Linh says she opened the café to help the children, as they are not allowed to stay at the school beyond the age of 15.

Linh has worked for the Hoa Phong Lan School for 14 years, and to date has gained two specialised diplomas.

The young teacher often bursts into tears when she sees the dozens of disabled children leaving the school at the age of sixteen and not knowing where to go. “Where are they going?”. Having been obsessed by the question, she then decided to help disabled children after reading an article in a newspaper about a Japanese girl, who had opened a coffee bar in HCM City to help disabled children. Thanks to her tireless efforts, the coffee bar, named Sun flower, was inaugurated in October. Dozens of people had offered her spaces to rent, when they understood her intention to open a coffee bar for disabled children, they refused. She had to borrow VND100 million from the bank and divided her house in No 26, Yersin street, Da Lat city to open the bar.

The bar has 15 small tables in a narrow space but the disabled children serve in a polite manner. As they can not know numbers and letters, Linh has to create signals for fruits and tables. It is difficult for them to avoid knocking tables, so Linh has had to train them for several weeks. An interesting thing is that after four months of training and serving at the bar, o­nly o­ne broke a glass while at school, Linh recalls, it was difficult for them to prevent their food from falling o­n the floor. But now, the children have changed a lot since they began working at the bar. They look happy as they seize opportunities to integrate into the community. Especially, they felt joy when they received their first wages of just VND150,000 per month. They felt independent and self-reliant when they contributed a small sum of money to their parents. Few people know that Linh had to spend her own money to pay their first wages.