Cool Café With Heart
Activity: Starfish Bakery
Location: Sihanoukville, southern Cambodia
Tip: If you’re not hungry, have a massage or shop for handicrafts
A classy café, sassy spa and gift shop that create employment for disabled people and assist vulnerable locals in the wider community.
Sarfish kids
Sarfish kids
The experience: The Starfish Bakery and Café is a shady retreat from the bustle of downtown Sihanoukville and a great place to relax during the heat of the day. The café menu includes homemade pastries, freshly baked bread, delicious chocolate brownies, healthy salads, inventive sandwiches and fresh fruit shakes. All customers can enjoy free wireless Internet access and the peaceful garden is the perfect backdrop to keep in touch with family and friends.
As well as the popular café, there is also a handicrafts shop upstairs that sells an excellent range of local products made by disabled people. The Sala Santepheap Massage Centre is also found here and is an indulgent way to relax after a busy day of fun in the sun. Indian head massage, Thai massage, foot massage and aromatherapy are all available and administered by experienced blind masseurs. The café is located down a side street behind Samudera Market in the centre of Sihanoukville.
Enjoy the delicious cinnamon rolls
Enjoy the delicious cinnamon rolls
How it helps: A Buddhist monk was on the beach with his apprentice the day after a fierce storm. Thousands of starfish had been washed up and stranded on the shore. Stooping down, the monk carefully lifted a single creature and returned it to the sea. His young apprentice wondered aloud why his master bothered to do this when it made little difference to the mass of helpless creatures. As they walked along, the monk picked up another single starfish and replied, “It makes a difference to this one.”
This is the guiding principle behind the Starfish Project, a charitable grassroots organization founded in 2000 as a community-based humanitarian initiative. Starfish meets its objective by providing its clients and their families with the means to gain self-sufficiency and independence.
Starfish are involved in a diversity of projects such as housing, community and water projects, medical and livelihood assistance, business start-ups, support to woman living in prisons and other self-sustainable projects.
The Starfish bakery and café was set up in 2001 and exclusively hires disabled people that would struggle finding meaningful jobs as a result of their disabilities. Income generated from all these businesses fund the staff salaries, rent utilities and covers the administrative costs of the Starfish project so that donations are solely used to help disadvantaged people. Visitors can donate time or money to Starfish projects and see how a little help goes a long way.
Location and contact information
Off 7 Makara St, Behind Samudera Market, Sihanoukville, Cambodia.
Tel: (+855) [0] 12 952 011
E-mail: info@starfishcambodia.org
Web: www.starfishcambodia.org
Open 0700 to 1700 daily
Map: Marker indicates the bus station at Sihanoukville; not where the cafe is exactly …
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