The route between luxury hotel and garbage dump has traditionally been one-way. Yet this is set to change, with an innovative project in Cambodia granting street kids a chance to work in the upper echelons of the hospitality industry. Shinta Mani, tel: (855) 63 761 998, is a crisply designed, 18-room, $130-per-night boutique hotel, which opened last year in Siem Reap, 6 km from Angkor Wat. But it also doubles as a vocational training institute, and its first classes, for some 16 youngsters, began earlier this month. The students—some of whom previously survived by scavenging in the city's refuse heaps—will learn everything from tidying beds to scrambling eggs. Shinta Mani's 50 full-time staff will also be giving the students on-the-job training. "Seeing the living standard of many of the residents of Siem Reap, you naturally want to try to help," says Martin Dishman, the hotel's general manager.
For their efforts, the students receive $10 and 4 kg of rice each per month. There is no requirement to stay on once the course finishes, but presumably many would love to work for the hotel that saved them from a life on the streets.
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