 Welcome to interview on our program today. We focus on the Chefs in Schools program and initiative of the Central Shell Hotel and Tourism Association. Today, we have a number of students from a couple of schools. In this instance, we are going to be looking at the activities at the Anjipo Secondary School. And with us today, Jenna Estefan and Saman Fagrinage, both of them formed for students. First of all, I tell you, I already got you interested in the sort of competition that led you to be the ones being selected to participate in this competition. Probably, first of all, Jenna, you can tell us. Well, first, it was in our F.A.N. class when our teacher measured it to us. And she said that two of us would be going to do the competition. But first, we have to have a competition in the school. Well, I took part in it. So with my partner and we will tie. And we will have two who had the chance to come to this competition. OK, so it was a case, Saman Fagrinage, a competition within the schools and would have taken the first two places. In this case, it was a tie between the two of you. It was tie for first place because we had the two best dishes out among the students in our classes. OK, and how did you prepare for it? What was the experience like? You know, like I said, you do full-on nutrition. But you had an inner liking for the culinary arts or at school, at home, rather, being raised up, being close to the kitchen? I'm very passionate about food. So I just wanted to devote my love and passion into the food that I cook. I'm not going to cook something that I don't like or that I don't like to do. So I decided to take the competition because it will be a good opportunity and I'll be exposed to the culinary arts and the tourism industry. OK, Jenna, tell us about, you know, it seemed to be a very keenly contested event at the school, both for you being tied. How was it like in terms of the numbers that participated and how close was the competition apart from the between the two of you? Well, first, I doubted myself. And then after, I was like, I can't do it because I have the ability to do it. And I have a passion in cooking, so I was like, I would get that. I would get it. Is it something, Samantha, that within the school itself, lots of excitement, people want to be part of it, wanting to enter? Well, we had a lot of pressure on us because we didn't have a lot of time to prepare the dish. So we had to be at it and we had to plan our dish and we knew what we were about to cook because we didn't have a lot of time. All right, so now that you've gone past that hurdle, the two of you have been selected to represent the school. What has been going on after that? Well, after the school, we were placed in our hotel. We were at St. James Morgan Bay. And it was very, I was shocked because there is a lot of pressure to cook for a certain amount of time and you have to cook for people. You have to be, it requires a lot of cleanliness and just have to be on point with what you're doing. Okay, Jenna, your experience in the hotel? Well, my first experience at the hotel, I was shocked as well because we experienced the chefs preparing dishes for guests and they walked very quick and they looked under pressure and we actually experienced how they're working under pressure. So how will that experience help you go into the competition noticing what the chefs do? Well, after a while, as we train at the hotel, we also work under pressure because our chef, he times us, he gives us one hour to prepare a dish and we have to move fast because an hour goes so fast. So what is he training like, apart from giving you the challenge of what is actually going to be like in the competition? You know, you have the hour to prepare your dish. So apart from that, what are the sort of tips that you get from the chefs out there to get you? Well, he encourages us to do our best and overall it's just a learning experience for us because if we have to go into the culinary sticks industry, we can take what we learn from this whole experience and use that to further our passion for cooking. So a regular day in the hotel will be you come in? We come in, well first we have to wash our hands, we have to wear, we have a dress code, we have to wear long pants, a t-shirt, a white t-shirt, our aprons, our hats, and sometimes wear gloves depending on what we're preparing and we have to use our knives to chop in boards and we take it from there. Seems like a lot of fun, you enjoying it? Of course I'm enjoying it. And is it something that you want to pursue even after the competition? Yes, I do. Okay, well we're going to be getting into our first break very soon so actually getting that experience is it inspiring you to not only for this competition but looking further, feeling to other students at your school to let them know what the experience is like and to encourage them to even look to make a career. Okay, we're going to take our first break on our program, you'll be back on interview. The best way to do it is to be healthy. It's absolutely necessary to wash your hands if you want to keep good health. Even if you don't wash your hands, you'll have to pay a lot of attention. Wash your hands often and clean them thoroughly after the competition, for example, you don't have to wash your hands after you've changed from your previous life to the type of people who are injured and ill after you've taken the animals and after you've had an accident. And if you don't wash your hands, you'll have to save your life if you have exams for three seconds a day. Wash your hands often, it is a good way to get rid of illnesses. Open your infos, visit the health library at the limit of 468, 4 years in a row. You're on interview on our focus today is the Chefs in Schools program and initiative being continued by the San Ushir Hotel and Tourism Association and we have a purpose in Studio Gender, Esther Fann and Samantha Greenwich both from four students at the entrepreneurial secondary school. We're looking at the competition now, and there are a number of things that you have to do. We spoke about the one hour, and there's actual directions, the mystery basket and stuff like that. Tell us about that. Are you ready to take on the competition? Have you been training in like, how do you actually get your final product out of your mystery baskets and the other aspects of the competition? Well, every day we would work on a different protein because we don't know what will be in the mystery basket. So our chef would give us a protein every day to work on. And he would leave us alone and make us do our own dish to see what we have for him. And also, if he sees we're going wrong, he will come and help us. You know, if we do something wrong, he will tell us, no, it's not that, it's that, stuff like that. Samantha, your feelings on that? Well, yeah, basically the mystery basket contains your protein. So he would make us practice working with your protein and how we can be creative with it and make our own dish out of it. And how does they want our, as we did mention earlier, just our, how does the pressure of having to produce the thing that I really tell on you, is that the most challenging part of it? Well, yes, it's a lot of work because we have to create a dish in that timeframe, including the plating, the cleanliness, like the overall presentation of the cooking. But the mindset going into it, there must be a particular mindset that you must have because you're not going to know what's going to be in the basket. It's a mystery. So how do you prepare yourself mentally to deal with it? What do you have coming up? Well, we are all, we're both thinking positive. I don't know how we put our best foot forward. We know it's going to be a lot of work, but we think we can do it. Okay, now the competition out of this, when you become winners, whoever is chosen from the group of different schools, you go on to a regional competition in Barbados. You are ready for that challenge? Yes, I'm confident that we can make it to Barbados and we will make the best out of the opportunity if we make it to Barbados. As far as the sort of experience of your school in the past being involved in this competition, in terms of the co-offence and some of that, the SLHD initiative, have you had any experience from previous students or any experience that your school has had in this competition? Yes, we did. There was a time chefs came to us and they taught us how to do different dishes. They came to the school and they taught us how to do different dishes. And from that, we got to know that there will be a culinary arts competition and we were interested in it. Okay, so an opportunity now to speak on the experiences at the hotels. We mentioned before it was in the kitchen, but we know that there's various aspects of the hotel life. So you can tell us about what sort of experiences you've had in terms of interacting with not just chefs, but other ways that hotels operate. Well, the staff is very friendly. They're very welcoming. At times, when we're on our break, we would go to the pool and have a little drink or a little something for lunch, a meal. Okay, you like yourself? My experience has been great. We love working with other chefs. Also, the staff are very friendly as well. If we want to know what they're doing, we would go to them like, what are you doing? How do you make it? And they would tell us, they want to educate us. They also want to educate us and let us know what they are doing and how our chef life is and how to work in the kitchen and how to be clean. We must always be clean as we go and make ourselves proud in the competition. So this experience, how does it impact on other activities in the school like other subjects? How does it relate in terms of are you more determined to succeed in your exams so that when you're finished and you have the passion for culinary arts, I'm sure you will need the backup of your more regular and general subjects to ensure that when you leave school and you want to go into that field, you have sufficient subjects to back your back and give you the foundation you need to continue the culinary arts. Well, we have to manage our time because after sometimes we finish probably like five or six. So when we get home, we still have additional homework to do, maybe house chores. So you have to balance our time with the competition and the other subjects as well as SPA's and any other projects that any other projects the teachers might give us for the term. Okay, we're going to wrap up in a while so just give me any closing comments on the culinary program, your school, what it's been like in terms of getting to where you are now, having to represent your school and the possibility of going on to represent Senusha at the regional level. Well, first, we are making ourselves proud, our teacher, our parents, and our chef. And also, we are ready for this competition and we think we will win this competition. Okay, Samantha. I'm very confident in the delivery and our signature dish and I'm positive. I'm going with a positive mindset and I'll give it my best and we'll try to win the competition. Thank you very much for being part of our program. Jenna Estefan and also Samantha Greenwich, both four-form students from the Entrepreneurial Secondary School. We can see you're exuding lots of confidence as you go into this SLHDA culinary competition. And we know that you certainly told us how the experience has benefited you. This has been an interview. We'll be back for another program.