Janus opens restaurant in Cayo
For the past seven years the people of the Janus Foundation have been operating in the Cayo District on various projects. This morning, they let us through their gates to give us an insider’s look at just a couple of the projects they’re currently working on, aimed to improve not only the lives of the community, but the environment as well. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods reports.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The Janus Foundation has been involved in a number of environmentally sound projects since it was established in 1995. Today, the organisation occupies five thousand acres in the Mountain Pine Ridge. To do their part in the fight against bush fires and land clearing, Janus has set up a nursery in a effort to replant thousands of trees that have been destroyed in the area throughout the years.
Thomas Qubeck, Project Supervisor
“Since we began with the nursery in 1996, we have planted out more than seventy-five thousand trees. And this is part of the effort to put back in those trees that have been taken out, especially for commercial purposes, Billy Web, Cabbage Bark, Cedar, Mahogany.”
Project supervisor, Thomas Qubeck says because the area has been declared a private forest reserve, he believes much of the work will be sustained.
Thomas Qubeck
“We are in touch with all of those communities that border the property and talking to them about not going into the property to create any plantations, milpas, to also not do any hunting. And so we have forest rangers, we have access roads around the whole property in order to control, that it stays a protected area. We also of course have monitoring of the reforestation plots.”
Each year, approximately three thousand students visit the reserve, not only to get information but also to participate in a number of hands on activities.
Clifford King, Co-ordinator, Community Outreach
“Initially what we tried to do, on a first visit for schools or for scouts, we give them a general tour of the facilities that we have here at the foundation, and if we have time we get into some hands-on activity. But if they are able to come back a second time, then we have them doing maybe a one-hour or a thirty-minute activity. For instance, we would have a group working at the nursery, packing plants, transplanting plants. We’d have maybe a group working in the woodworking shop, maybe making some little souvenir, maybe a pencil holder, just for them to get a feel of how to cut something, how to make something presentable.”
The programmes are funded by international agencies, but some of the money is generated through the foundation’s projects. In 1997, Janus built a bakery and today, officially opened its restaurant to the general public.
Katrina Sengfeleer, Services/Catering Manager
“The restaurant was set up for hospitality training, to train Belizean youths in the skills of baking, cooking, serving people and it’s also creating income for the project. So everything in the project like the nursery, the educational training, everything of course needs funds, and it’s always difficult to get those funds on and on and on. So the idea is if the project actually could live by itself, it means create income, which means the income then can build up more things for the project and this way it grows and it strengthens.”
The restaurant specialises in European and American dishes which members of the press sampled today. Reporting for News 5, I’m Jacqueline Woods.
If any school is interested in touring the Janus Foundation or taking part in their activities, you can get in touch with the organisation at 820-4004.
