A Clinton School student traveled to Mongolia last year to conduct research for an orphanage and children’s center for her final project in her master’s degree program.
Clinton School student Katie Longino worked with the Lotus Children’s Center and Guesthouse during the fall of 2012 to develop an employee handbook and training manual, as well as other marketing materials, through the use of best practice research.
According to World Vision, there are approximately 4,000 children in Mongolia, mostly in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, who live or work on the streets. The Lotus Children’s Center was established in 1993 to address this problem by providing children with basic human rights including shelter, food and education.
Lotus has developed several social enterprises that serve to support the Children’s Center financially and act as a platform for vocational training programs, one of which is the Lotus Guesthouse. Working at the Lotus Guesthouse provides employees, all of whom are current or former Lotus children, with basic skills in business, hospitality and tourism. These skills can be used for future employment in the hospitality and tourism industries.
Longino worked with leadership at both the Lotus Children’s Center and the Lotus Guesthouse to develop an employee handbook and manual based upon best practices. The handbook and manual stress the importance of the Guesthouse to the Children’s Center and provide a basis of standards for employment in the hospitality and tourism industries and particularly employment at the Lotus Guesthouse.
“Katie has been a huge asset to the Lotus team,” said Anna Butler, volunteer coordinator at the Lotus Children’s Center. “The employee handbook and manual she created will help to cultivate an environment where all employees have bought-in to the mission of Lotus and should help to make the Guesthouse a thriving business that can support the Children’s Center to an even greater extent than it is now.”
Longino completed the project as part of the Clinton School’s Capstone project requirements, the last of three field service projects in the Master of Public Service degree program.
“Working at the Lotus Guesthouse has been an incredible experience for me,” Longino said. “It provided me an opportunity to apply the Clinton School curriculum within the context of a social enterprise with a mission that I genuinely believe in.”