Common Grounds Cafe

On January 16th 2008, Common Grounds Café was opened by Julie Martinez as part of our parent organization People For Care And Learning (PCL), with the vision of creating a missional business that gives poor and disadvantaged people in Siem Reap a working chance. Instead of giving handouts we believe in giving opportunity through providing on the job vocational training in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

Over the past 11 years we have provided training and jobs to dozens of Cambodian young people, and we have ecstatically cheered them on watching many of them go on to successful careers, some of them working in some of the top hotels and restaurants Cambodia has to offer.

In 2008, Dalath Loeut was hired as one of our initial 13 employees. He is from a poor family in the countryside of Battambang province and he had no previous job experience in the restaurant industry. He started working with us as a server and through hard work and dedication he learned and worked his way up taking on more and more responsibility. In 2015, Dalath became the manager of Common Grounds, and today he carries out all of our day-to-day operations. He is now on the other side of the spectrum, providing hope to young people with similar backgrounds to himself.