THE LUXURY TRAVEL
MAGAZINE FOR INDEPENDENT
TRAVELLERS

There are two things you’ll notice when you arrive in Siem Reap: The first is that there are a lot of hotels. Streets and streets of them, from the very basic to the extremely lavish. The temples of Angkor Wat obviously bring in enough tourists to keep all these hotels going, but it does make it difficult to decide where to stay.

The second is that there is a lot of poverty, and a lot of children on the streets.

You wouldn’t think that these two things could be linked in any way – hotels and streetchildren generally aren’t – but when it comes to Cambodia, and Siem Reap in particular, it seems that living in luxury doesn’t mean you have to ignore what’s going on outside your comfortable cocoon.

At least, not when you stay at Shinta Mani, a charming little boutique hotel with an attached Institute of Hospitality, where young Cambodian adults from areas of risk are given the skills and training to turn their lives around. The project, which was started the same year the hotel opened (in 2004) is the vision of owner Sokoun Chanpreda (a native Cambodian who fled the country and has lived in Thailand most of his life). Together with Chirta Vincent, the General Manager from Sri Lanka and the first school director, Sokoun got the project off the ground, and these days it is an established program not only for students wanting to change their lives, but for employers looking for top-quality staff trained to handle the various needs of a hotel or restaurant.

The nine-month courses train young adults for various roles – they can become cooks at the culinary school, or learn all they need to work in housekeeping, in a restaurant, spa or front office of a hotel, or on the financial or maintenance side. Pretty much every aspect of hotel management is covered at the Institute of Hospitality. Much of the training is in the form of an internship – the hotel relies on the department heads to conduct training in their areas, but the students are never alone, they’re always with a member of staff. At the end of the nine months, they’re equipped to go out and find work anywhere in the country, with a qualification that employers can trust.

So how does Shinta Mani choose these lucky students? It’s a rigorous process that begins with an application form (each year they receive between 100 and 300 applications for the 25 available spots). The project co-ordinators then visit the prospective students in their homes to look at their living situation, how they are doing, and how eager they are to be trained and taught how to work in the hospitality industry. Solomon Deleon, the current director of the Community-based Activities and the School, explains how exhaustive this stage is. “The interview process takes a long time,” he says, “Up until now we’ve gone to meet each applicant in person, and then had to decide from there which students to accept each year. In future we might try to put together a shortlist from the applications, so we don’t spend quite so much time conducting the interviews.”

It’s important to realise that the spots these young adults are being interviewed for aren’t just for themselves. In most cases, a job like this would significantly impact the wellbeing of an entire family, not only after the students are employed, but during training. “We want our students to be able to focus on their studies,” Solomon explains, “So we don’t only give them free education, but also a monthly stipend, uniforms, meals, study materials, and a weekly supply of four kilograms of rice for their families.”

It’s a generous endowment, and obviously part of a winning formula – since its beginnings in June 2004, over 100 young adults have had their lives changed through this project alone. Shinta Mani also has other smaller community-based projects, including live piggy banks (where you can sponsor a pair of piglets for a family), fishing supplies or water wells. But the Institute of Hospitality is their number one priority. The funds come from small individual donations as well as from the operation of the hotel, and at the moment all online bookings for the hotel result in a $5 donation going towards the school. If you plan your trip in advance, you can arrange to meet some of the students, or have them cook you a meal, or visit one of the community-based projects during your stay in Siem Reap.

What is so remarkable about all this, though, is that it carries on behind the façade of a seemingly normal boutique hotel. On arrival at Shinta Mani you are greeted with an ice-cold welcoming drink and a welcoming scarf. The staff are pleasant and efficient, and lead you to your spacious room with large windows looking out over the swimming pool and the trees. As you pass the beautifully appointed dining room downstairs in the garden, or the large open library with free computers to go online, there’s no hint that this is in fact a successful community work project. The rooms are understated but elegant – all in black and white, with stunning framed prints of the temples and well-chosen antiques scattered around the communal areas. The window seat lets you gaze out over the full-length pool. The bed is wonderfully comfortable and overflowing with puffy white feather pillows and duvets. In fact, it’s only if you read the pamphlets left out on the large desk that you’ll find out that Shinta Mani is not just like any other hotel, that it is, in fact, a rather extraordinary hotel by virtue of its commitment to creating positive change in Cambodia.