Deaf baker innovates 

With cinnamon chips 

CORTES, Bohol, Dec. 19 (PIA) – While the coronavirus pandemic has shut down several major industries manned by able workers, a hotel and restaurant manned largely by persons with disabilities may have adopted flexible working arrangements, but the work lull for some of its workers became periods for making their craft much better. 

During the recent Kapihan sa PIA which commemorated the International Day for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), Dao Diamond Hotel and Restaurant General Manager Maria Shobel Ligalig said they worked on developing more the skill of their cook, who successfully baked cinnamon chips, which the hotel is now offering as a neatly packed Christmas gift item. 

About 65 percent of the hotel and restaurant staff including backroom operations at the Dao Diamond Hotel is done by PWDs, largely hearing impaired, Ligalig said. 

A month before anti-COVID measures stopped work, we were programming training courses for our workers, Ligalig who is also just a few months into the new job, told Kapihan listeners. 

The end goal was to make their workers get certified on industry service standards, considering that the hotel should be able to compete in garnering a chunk in the huge tourism market pie in Bohol. 

Majority of the hotel workers are informally trained or learned their crafts from experience, and getting them into a competency assessment with accepted work standards could also help the PWDs earn better employability. 

But with the pandemic putting their plans in the back room, Ligalig admitted they had to save their workers from getting hungry, by adopting a rotation work for their skeletal workforce at the time when room occupancy was very low. 

Within that same time, they noticed a hearing-impaired baker doing nachos. 

Also an acknowledged motivator, Ligalig, along with the Drakes, who manage the local International Deaf Education Association (IDEA) Philippines non-profit organization urged the baker to experiment on new products. 

The baker, Agapito Amoy, 45 years old from Loboc, bakes decent cinnamon rolls for Dao Diamond Hotel. 

Amoy, through sign language and an interpreter, said he learned the cooking trade while working at another IDEA project to allow their assisted deaf get employment. 

At Garden Café, Amoy accordingly learned how to cook, a skill he used as an ace in his sleeves to woo another hearing impaired woman who will become her wife and mother to his three kids. 

While working as an assistant cook at the Garden Café, Amoy learned and acquired enough confidence to join the Dao Diamond team, where he became the resident cinnamon roll expert. 

Experimenting into the cinnamon chips also proved to be beneficial to other workers in the hotel as the preparation for the chips need many hands. 

A longer process means more workers and this is good for workers who will have more to work on and earn for their daily sustenance, Ligalig said. 

Cinnamon chips, which come in unmistakable nacho-form, is sweet crunchy snack great for munching while passing away time in front of the TV. 

Now sold in 200 grams and 500 gram packs, cinnamon chips can be a good Christmas gift idea, while this allows one to help the hearing impaired and the IDEA fund for their deaf students at the Bohol Deaf Academy, Ligalig, who used to be the City Tourism Officer said. 

The move also allows Amoy to have longer work hours over other workers, which is good for him who has three kids who were born without any hearing problems. 

As the pandemic has also pushed establishments to reconfigure their set-ups and the Hotel carpentry department “Hammer and Saw,” has accepted more work orders, which helped our workers. 

Dao Diamond has been established to provide a venue for our hearing impaired and assisted individuals employment opportunities for better chances at life, Ligalig remarked. 

By God’s grace, we were able to still provide our workers with employment and assisted their food needs through our relief operations, she added. 

But the best thing, she went on is that even with the pandemic, we went to equip our workers so they can gain more skills and provide a better edge for the hotel as Bohol starts to reopen its tourism industry after managing the pandemic. 

This year's 2020 International Day of Persons with Disabilities celebration adopts the theme “Building Back, Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World” (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

CINNAMON BENEFITS. Other than giving jobs to deaf bakers at Dao Diamond Hotel, cinnamon, which is the base ingredients for the new chips has antiviral, antibacterial and anti fungal properties. It also contains antioxidants with anti-inflammatory effects, its prebiotic properties may improve gut health and reduces blood pressure. It also lowers blood sugar and risk of type 2 diabetes while it relieves digestive discomfort. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)