A café in Quezon City that accepts young adults with special needs as trainees is dealing with criticism from followers of online news site Now This which posted a video about Puzzle Gourmet Store & Café on Sunday.
The owner mentions on the video (see below) that the traineees are not paid salaries, and commenters, mostly people living in the United States, have called the arrangement exploitative.
Now This clarified that “only trainees who need extra help and can’t work independently don’t receive monetary compensation” and that “longtime employees (including a chef who has autism) do receive salaries.”
We reached out to the owner Ysabella Canoy, who started this project late last year for her son Jose, who has autism.
According to her, the café currently has seven individuals with autism and two with Down Syndrome. “Some of them are here as part of their therapy, some of them are here as part of their school’s Job Readiness Program, and some of them are here as request from their parents.”
The reason these individuals are not being given a salary, she explains, is because it was discussed with their parents during the early stages of planning that they are not actually regular employees. “What we give them is an incentive, so all the tips that customers leave are collected and put in a tip box which is distributed evenly among them,” she says.
Some of them work in the kitchen, some are frontliners.
“Each individual has a different set-up, which was decided by both their parents and their teachers. This covers their number of hours, frequency of shifts, and what they do,” the owner explains.
“We try to base the new tasks we introduce them to from what they’re interested in, so some of them like cooking and baking so we allow them to assist in kitchen prep work. But we have some related tasks which are easier and more manageable like making waffles, which we allow them to do independently if we know that they’re ready for it.”
Puzzle started as a family project by the Canoys, whose 20-year-old son Jose was born with autism. it serves quirkily named and playfully presented comfort dishes. We wrote about it in March.
At the end of the day, says Canoy, the big goal is to give “some of these individuals enough experience and confidence for them to be able to apply in bigger companies or other businesses in the future, should they wish.”
She adds: “Puzzle Cafe allows them to experience real situations they may be faced with in the work place, which cannot be replicated in therapy or in school. For the rest, it is a place outside their home and school where they can continue to learn and progress.”
