Chronicle Editor
Flora Fadzai Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
A 54-YEAR-OLD woman from Bulawayo has opened a hospitality and tourism school for school leavers that are not academically gifted.
Mrs Irene Sambo opened the school at St Pius Cathedral in Njube suburb. The school teaches children with no academic qualifications how to be professional chefs who can be employed by the tourism industry.
The students are being taught in vernacular languages and Mrs Sambo said the aim is to impart skills to individuals who had lost hope because they are not academically gifted.
Aesha Hospitality and Tourism School has an enrolment of over 20 students from around the city.
Mrs Sambo said her students do industrial attachment at hotels and fast-food outlets.
A co-director of a local company that produces yoghurt and sausages, Mrs Sambo is one of the 10 chefs in the country who are working on analysing traditional foods and how they help old people live longer.
Mrs Sambo said she started teaching cooking courses to youths at Pumula Home Craft Centre under the Bulawayo City Council in 2010 before she opened the tourism school.
“I started working with youths as early as 1994 at church. I have always been inclined towards youths who are not academically gifted. I started the technique of teaching students cooking courses using vernacular languages when I was still at Pumula Home Craft Centre. I later decided to open my own school here in Njube,” said Mrs Sambo.
She said the school takes two intakes a year and she always ensure there is gender balance.
Mrs Samboa said there are no academic qualifications required to enrol as the target are those individuals that are not academically gifted.
“After analysing the students’ strengths and weaknesses, I group them accordingly. I have realised that most of my students are not good when it comes to theory but do wonders during practicals,” she said.
Mrs Sambo said she is working towards enrolling more students at her school once she gets a bigger classroom.
She said growing up she has always wanted to be a chef and would closely watch her late paternal grandfather cooking at the National Railways of Zimbabwe where he worked as a chef.
Mrs Sambo said her grandfather realised her passion for cooking and bought her small pots and would monitor her during play time.
She said the grandfather took time to teach her how to bake and cook simple dishes.
Mrs Sambo said as part of teaching her students the principles of a chef’s social responsibility, they do fundraising as a team every semester and whenever one of the students loses a loved one, they cook at the funeral wake for free.
“We also cook meals which we sell to the students and the money raised is used to pay fees for two most disadvantaged students every year,” she said.
One of the students, Ms Lorna Tagarira said she has been at the school for the past three months and has learnt a lot.–@flora_sibanda
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