When Jeanne Seah-Khong and Khong Yoon Kay found that their five-year-old daughter Joan was not like other children and needed special attention and education, it was a heartbreaking realisation.

“I fought grief, anger and despair and went through a very hard time,” said Jeanne candidly.

Coming to terms with Joan’s intellectual impairment – the cause of which the Khongs have never fully determined – was one thing; the most pressing concern was how to offer Joan the opportunities to maximise her potential and give her a secure place in the world.

“Raising a child in today’s environment, and raising a child with special needs has a different set of challenges,” said Jeanne.

“There are some sad moments when you see your child without friends or being taken advantage of because of their naiveté and gullibility. Our biggest fear was what would happen to Joan when we are not around any more.”

Joan has limitations in her speech and memory, and while she is able to perform tasks such as travelling independently, she cannot express herself well or handle complex interactions with people.

As parents who wanted the best for their daughter, they grew “frantic” as Joan – now 19 – got older and as vocational training opportunities became elusive. “Once outside the special school system, there are only basic and minimal training options where youths can learn life and vocational skills, but mainstream employment is also not ideal,” elaborated Yoon Kay.

Understanding all too well the barriers faced by special needs children in the working world, the Khongs decided to set up a café that would fill the gap by providing an apprenticeship under the guidance of a professional chef. “The aim is to bring out the best in the youths that have the potential and give them a fi ghting chance to become active and productive members in the larger community,” Yoon Kay said.

Starting from scratch

Without any prior experience in the F&B industry, the Khongs took a long time – more than a year – to set up the enterprise.

Despite the challenges, they persisted, funding the café with their own savings that had meant to be Joan’s education fund. “Joan had an interest in housework and helping out in the kitchen when she was younger,” Jeanne explained.

“We nurtured that interest over the years by enrolling her in cooking and culinary classes during the holidays. In school, she has also gone into the F&B class; the café was a logical progression.” The Joan Bowen café – which combines the Christian (Joan) and Chinese (Bowen) names of their daughter – opened in August 2009.

“We literally blundered our way through the process, learning about regulations and processes along the way,” Jeanne recounted, laughing.

Operationally, they also had come up with their own training processes.

“We have to break a task into different steps to make it easier to memorise,” said Yoon Kay, an engineer by training. They had to tailor and devise alternative methods and structured learning supports to help overcome challenges such as poor memory retention and gaps in skills, he added.

For example, Jeanne has had to come up with a written list to help the staff tally the float in the register. “I have to list down the number of notes of coins – 21 10-cent coins or 20 $10-bills – instead of the total monetary value,” explained Jeanne.

Creative menus

In the kitchen, their full-time chef Lai Wen Fu, designs the menu and daily specials, and trains the staff in food preparation, cooking, plating and garnishing.

“We have to rely on rote learning and this takes time before the staff are able to memorise the steps,” Jeanne said. Overall, each staffer learns a range of skills, from basic janitorial duties to dish-washing and depending on their disabilities and interests, customer service or kitchen work.

There are about nine staff who work at the café every day and they are paid a salary of about $850 to $1,000 a month. The plan is to train each candidate for an eight-month training stint before they ‘graduate’ to a job in the ‘real’ world.

Ten months on, the Khongs look back at their enterprise with a little pride and deep gratitude.

“We are pleasantly surprised by how many are touched by our café initiative,” said Jeanne. “There are regular customers who give encouragement to our kids. We also have the office crowd at lunch as well as family diners from the neighbourhood.”

On busy days, the café may serve as many as 70 ‘covers’ (meals) for lunch and 60 for dinner. In fact, the word has also spread abroad and they’ve gotten visitors from China and Australia who have been inspired by the café and its mission.

Rewarding

“It’s been a tiring but rewarding experience. The hours are long and we are learning the trade along the way,” said Jeanne. It’s especially heartening for the Khongs to see Joan take ownership and pride in the café. Joan opens up and prepares the café from 9am everyday, six days a week and works 12- to 14-hour days, usually in the kitchen. When Singapore visited, Joan was busy working in the kitchen – her favourite part of the cafe. When asked about her work, Joan smiled shyly and said simply that she “liked being with her friends”.

Apart from seeing their daughter take to the business, the Khongs also have the pride of seeing their extended ‘family’ bloom.

“What thrills me is seeing all of the kids come together in their work, complement each other’s skills and help each other out. What one person may lack, someone is always ready to step in and say ‘let me show or help you’,” said Yoon Kay.

“We have certainly seen real-life work experience change the kids for the better;” added Jeanne.

“The withdrawn have become more assertive, the meek have become confident and most important of all, we have seen confi dence boosted and self-esteem elevated. We are really proud of what they can and have achieved, and what they have become.”

Joan Bowen Cafe

9 Jalan Wangi (off Macpherson Road)

joanbowen.blogspot.com

* This article was first published in Singapore Magazine (Jun-Sep 2010 issue) and written by Sheralyn Tay.