3 minute read
About KOTO
from Blogs
by handprintsg
KOTO stands for Know One, Teach One — learning should be passed on; knowledge is meant to be shared. This is the essential idea of KOTO’s Vietnamese-Australian founder, Jimmy Pham.
In 1999, Mr Jimmy opened a hospitality training centre in Hanoi, giving at-risk and disadvantaged youth the opportunity to break the poverty cycle by forging a better future for themselves, their families and their communities.
Twenty-two years later, our over 1,200 graduates now include executive and sous chefs, hotel and resort general managers, business owners as well as university graduates. All are contributing to their families and society.
KOTO continues to be acknowledged as a leading unique not-for-profit social enterprise, not only in Vietnam but also internationally. Today, KOTO provides over 100 at-risk and disadvantaged youth per year in Vietnam an opportunity to undertake our 24-month holistic hospitality training program to end the cycle of poverty and truly empower our trainees to realise their dreams.
Company Structure
KOTO Vietnam is a company owned by Mr Jimmy Pham, OAM. It is Vietnam’s first social enterprise. Jimmy established the company as the vehicle to achieve KOTO’s vision and mission.
Governance
KOTO has a range of governance and management policies and practices in place to assure donors, stakeholders and regulators that vulnerable persons are safe, and always protected from physical, mental or sexual abuse. These include:
following and monitoring the policies. These policies and their associated monitoring, reporting and complaints procedures are designed to ensure that KOTO is a safe and caring environment, especially through protection trainees, and a robust process for reporting and investigation of incidents
ensuring that KOTO staff, volunteers, internship hosts, and other service providers have similar, robust governance arrangements in place, and comply with KOTO Vietnam’s requirements, where they apply
implementing human resource policies that ensure that staff and volunteers are vetted, appropriately qualified and trained and supported in their roles
ensuring that trainees are trained, supported and monitored to assist them behave in appropriate ways.
KOTO and KOTO International work closely together to ensure that each of their policies, procedures and activities align closely. Together, the two organisations regularly monitor the safety of the environment and trainees and deal with any complaints or incidents comprehensively and in a fair and transparent manner.
The History of KOTO
Jimmy Pham was born in Vietnam in 1972 and moved to Australia as a young child with his mother and siblings, growing up in Sydney. He was interested in tourism and travel, and studied hospitality at school. One night, on his first trip back to Vietnam, Jimmy went for a walk in Saigon and met some street kids. He noticed how dirty they were, and that they had blisters on their legs.
He asked, “Where do you shower?” and they replied, “We shower next to an open sewer.” The next day, he organised for that small group of street kids to have a proper wash. By the time he left Vietnam some two weeks later, word of his generosity had spread, and he was paying for 60 young people to wash and eat.
The concept of KOTO — Know One, Teach One — began when Jimmy asked some of these young people what they wanted out of life. They simply replied, “We need skills so we can find stable jobs.” He then decided that he wanted to come back to Vietnam on a long-term basis and make a difference. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, he just knew that he wanted to help.
