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The story of Hoang Do

date_range2018-01-17

“I live in District 4 with my parents. Neither of them have a stable job, they just sell things on the pavement. From this, we don’t have a regular income for the family. I wasn’t able to complete my education as I needed to earn money for the family so I left school to work as a waiter in a cafe. I worked as a waiter for seven years with no chance of promotion, just changing between different coffee shops.

There was a time when I was so confused as to what to do next and how to change. Then my father showed me a saigonchildren leaflet, which had lots of vocational courses to choose from. I chose to join the baking class because I thought it would be a good skill for me in the future.

All the lessons are so interesting, and I’m always eager to get to class and make delicious cakes! However, it can be challenging at times when I do a step over and over again but still fail. Another challenge, which has arisen during the exams, is that I don’t have money to buy the materials to make a cake, practice and take the exam. Without saigonchildren’s support, I couldn’t have overcome those difficulties and continued down this career path.
 
I became an assistant baker in Baguette Bakery, earning 4m vnd a month, right after I graduated from the trainings at Saigonchildren. Now, I am a baker at Tous les Jours and am going to improve my English skill together with baking skill to develop my career path here. At school, I only learned about basic baking techniques and some different types of bread. Now that I’m actually working in a bakery, I realize that there are many things I still need to learn but I’ll never give up, and I will try to become a professional baker. I believe I will have a better life if I continue to achieve my goals.

I would like to send my deepest gratitude to all the sponsors and to saigonchildren for providing such meaningful courses, orientations and career opportunities for disadvantaged young people like myself.  To the other students who are studying with saigonchildren, I want to encourage you to trust yourselves and your choices because you will definitely be successful one day.”

Le Hoang Do – baker at Tous les Jours

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