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| Café Horizons |
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A typical day at Café Horizons is not difficult to articulate. It is the routine nature of the program that
endears it to the student population. A retreat away from complex young lives riddled with mishap and
uncertainty, when the Café doors open at 8.30am they provide a six-hour sanctum of learning, pastoral
care, food and fun. At any one time up to 12 students are involved in the program. Students filter in
between 8.30am and 9am to fix themselves a quick burst of caffeine in preparation for a morning of
theory-based work. The structure from Tuesday through Friday is rigid; training, café service, project work
and then home. Monday is slightly more flexible so that time in the afternoon is made available for
students to attend the stream of appointments that come with the territory - doctor’s appointments,
counselling sessions and Centrelink meetings alike.
Each day a team meeting is held just before 11am where students and staff are given the opportunity to
voice any work related issues from the day prior. Here jobs for the day ahead are delegated and then
lunch, prepared by staff and Certificate II students, is served to the group. By 11.30am it is expected that
all students be outfitted in their Café Horizons uniforms and ready to serve the public. The shop opens
and over the course of a few hours a steady stream of customers are met and served by the students.
Lunchtime traffic slows at about 2.30pm and students clean the Café until doors close at 3pm. It is then
back to the classroom for more intensive training sessions for the afternoon. Here they work on varying
projects and practice valuable life skills as they wash and iron dirty laundry in anticipation of the
following day. This particular Thursday they’re studying ‘working in a culturally diverse environment’,
quite apt for the Cabramatta community, and a fine example of how learning on the shop floor meets the
classroom at Café Horizons. Some of the questions might seem rudimentary - ‘It is not your concern if an
overseas customer cannot be understood, true or false’ - but they get students thinking about real life
issues in a working environment.
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Monday A fun morning for creative cooking for both students and staff - café is closed to
the public this day. The afternoon is left free for students.
Tuesday - Friday
| 9.00am - 11.00am |
Session 1 Class work focusing on various areas of hospitality |
| 11.00am - 11.30am |
Lunch |
| 11.30am - 2.30pm |
Café is open for service to the general public |
| 2.30pm - 3.00pm |
Clean up time |
| 3.00pm - 4.00pm |
Session 2 A little class work / project work and daily wrap up |
| 4pm |
Time to go home! |
| On Friday afternoon Session 2 is dedicated to intensive cleaning of the Café. |
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Contact:
Jason McMillen, Manager
jason.mcmillen@aue.salvationarmy.org
Phone: (02) 9724 6344
Written by:
Mikaeli Costello
Dusseldorp Skills Forum |
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