VOCATIONAL TRAINING WORKSHOPS
The Center offers each resident a vocational training, enabling them to be integrated in professional life and to become as autonomous as possible. Various vocational training workshops enable the youngsters to learn a profession and promote income generating activities.
In TTG vocational training is currently pursued in the following workshops:
- Lacquer art workshop
- Incence workshop
- Food processing workshop
- Teahouse
- Biodynamic Garden
The TTG youngsters produce wonderful handmade incense, embroideries, handmade dolls and other handicrafts. Please come and visit the workshop. You can also order the products.
What we learn
In the incense workshop we learn to operate the machines for making the incense, this helps when us to develop both our coordination and our gross and fine motor skills. The preparation of the paste from which the incense is made also provides a tactile experience and requires us to learn how to dose the correct amount of liquid and powder.
Other crafts, such as embroidery and making dolls require us to develop our fine motor skills and their hand-eye coordination.
Very unique and creative lacquer paintings made by the youngsters can be ordered or purchased directly in TTG. Lacquer painting is a traditional Vietnamese art using crushed eggshells, and both clear and colored lacquer.
We also decorate furniture with lacquer-work and create small pieces of jewellery, such as earrings.
What we learn
We learn to express ourselves in images and be creative. We learn how to work with color too, and how to prepare a lacquer painting. This requires us to use our fine motor skills and our hand-eye coordination. The lacquer work technique requires many steps. First we do a drawing on paper as a model, we then transfer this onto a black board, which has been prepared for the lacquer painting. Finishing a lacquer painting takes several months, as we need to apply many layers of color and polish our painting at different stages in order to attain the right depth of color. We also learn patience and perseverance in this workshop.
The community kitchen is where the youngsters, together with our cooks, help to prepare delicious and healthy meals for the community every day.
A professional workshop for:
– jam
– candied fruits
– fruit juice
A bakery workshop
In the bakery we make delicious cookies and ice- cream for sale in the tea house. We also make cakes for the community.
What we learn
In the food processing workshops we learn about different stages of food preparation and conservation.
In the kitchen, we learn how to wash and prepare the vegetables, meat and fish for the meals, which our great cook transforms into delicious meals.
In the professional food processing workshop we learn how to prepare the fruit and we learn about stages of food processing involved in making the different products. When making cakes and cookies, we learn how to prepare and measure the ingredients and how to combine them to make delicious baked goods.
We welcome you to the peaceful and charming atmosphere of the TTG tea house. Situated 10 minutes from the busy town centre, lies this little haven of peace, surrounded by flowers, trees and many smiling faces and friendly staff. It is a great place to enjoy tea, chat with friends, organize a birthday party, or just sit to relax! You can also taste our delicious ice cream and cookies or feast on the beautiful artwork which covers the walls of the tea house. You can support the community by buying some of our products, which are on sale in the tea house.
We are looking forward welcoming you soon.
If you wish to have a guided visit, please contact us in advance.
We are cultivating our vegetables, fruits and medicinal herbs according to the biodynamic methods. The vegetables and fruits we cultivate, are primarily for our own use. We sell some of our products to friends. The garden provides us with vegetables each day, nourishing the whole community with healthy food and we are all very grateful for that.
The biodynamic approach to gardening focuses on nourishing the soil in a natural way and respects the rhythms of nature and the planets.
We are hoping to become the first biodynamic training centre in Vietnam. We have been holding a yearly training since…. our aim to develop biodynamic medicinal herb products in the future.
We also have three cows living at the end of our garden, which are a source of joy for some of the youngsters and also support the ecosystem of the garden in providing manure.
What we learn in the garden
We learn to take care of the earth and to appreciate the abundance of nature. We can constantly observe the cycles of nature and experience the wonder of a seed sprouting and pushing through the soil, to grow into a beautiful plant or tree. Working in close contact with the earth allows us to be more present to ourselves and to feel more grounded. We learn to recognise the different fruits and vegetables that we eat and what they need in order to grow. We also learn how to manipulate different tools for working with the soil.
It is especially the men, both young and old, who feel the need to make use of their physical energy, that enjoy working in the garden.
The garden is a very important part of the community and is more than a workshop. Other than providing us with food, it is also a place to sit or walk and enjoy nature.
