In recent years, two things have become clear in the foodservice industry. The first is the undeniable shortage of qualified waiters, which are not highly valued socially and financially combined with a problem to balance personal and professional life.
The second is the systemic difficulties faced by public hotel high schools: increasing closure of classes teaching service and table arts (as opposed to classes for cooking), negative image resulting from geographical location (rural areas, suburbs), attendance (choice out of spite) and the lack of resources needed to expand a network.
Faced with this situation, we have taken action by creating, in 2019, an empowerment project for students for 16 to 20 years old students from public hotel high schools in Paris suburbs and professional people involved in the catering industry.
This article aims to describe the results obtained at the end of the first 4 years, which enabled the students to open up to a more diverse cultural life, to value their training, become aware of the opportunities it offers, and finally to give them the intellectual and human means to take their future in their own hands. It will detail the stages and mechanisms to be put in place to duplicate it, while respecting the uniqueness of each experiment...
In short, it's a practical experiment aimed at transforming liminality, a traditional zone of malaise, into a "forward swing" force for underprivileged young people who urgently need to be given back their future.