HRH The Prince of Wales – known as The Duke of Rothesay in Scotland – recently opened the Belling Hospitality Training Centre at Dumfries House Estate, with award-winning chef Tony Singh on hand to offer his culinary expertise.
The new training facility, generously sponsored by global electrical manufacturers Glen Dimplex, features a state of the art training kitchen and restaurant designed to give students practical hospitality training experience, allowing them to learn new skills and progress within the industry.
The centre will cater for the training needs of restaurants and hoteliers as well as offering one-day experiences for visitors.
Prince Charles met with young people completing The Prince's Trust Get into Hospitality programme at Dumfries House, who will benefit from the new training facilities as they complete the five week training course.
The programme is aimed at unemployed young people aged 16 to 25 years old, and offers essential training in food hygiene and food preparation as well as front of house skills, such as housekeeping and barista training.
His Royal Highness also visited the Sawmill Traditional Skills Centre which is a base for The Prince’s Trust to host Get into Sustainable Building programmes.
The courses gives unemployed young people an insight into working within the building and construction industries, with a focus on traditional building methods including stone masonry, carpentry and dry stone walling.
After meeting the young people participating on the programme, His Royal Highness presented their certificates to mark the completion of the course.
Lauren Dipiazza, 18 from Kilmarnock, completed The Trust’s Get into Hospitality programme in May 2012 after being unemployed for eight months. After successfully completing the programme, Lauren was offered a fulltime post front-of-house within Dumfries House and has since been promoted to the role of Events Assistant.
Lauren commented: "The Prince’s Trust and the team at Dumfries House have given me fantastic support, if it hadn’t been for them I would probably still be unemployed.
“The new training centre at Dumfries House is excellent and any young person who comes to learn here will have an amazing experience.”
Source: Prince's Trust
