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We’re Recruiting: Cook and Assistant Cooks Needed
Karma Yoga (work-service) Positions Available
Add this unique experience to your C.V. whether you just graduated from culinary school or are an experienced cook. By expanding your expertise and expressing your creativity in healthy, nutritious menus you can not only become a part of our community but also have the opportunity to experience and live a healthy and holistic lifestyle.
About Us
The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas is on a beautiful Paradise Island, a short boat ride from Nassau. We are immersed in a tropical forest on one of the best beaches in the Bahamas. We are a traditional yoga ashram with a mission to teach classical yoga. All are welcome to come to our ashram, we learn from all traditions, and actively promote Unity in Diversity through interfaith and inter-spiritual dialog, including perspectives from science and the arts. We seek to promote outer peace in the world through inner peace, by sharing the wisdom and practices of yoga and contributing to a positive shift in consciousness on the planet. The ashram was founded by Swami Vishnudevananda, named in honor of his teacher, Swami Sivananda, and continues to teach in the lineage of the two great yoga masters.
Karma Yoga
Karma yoga positions are unpaid opportunities to serve as part of, and in support of, a community. Selfless service is considered the highest form of yoga and the Sivananda Ashram in the Bahamas is run solely through the commitment of hundreds of people engaged in Karma Yoga. Come give, learn, practice, and be a part of work with a mission — to bring more peace into the world.
Opportunities
We are seeking:
- An experienced and qualified cook or cook assistant who has experience cooking for large groups, buffet style.
- Graduates from a culinary or Ayurvedic cooking program who are interested in growing and applying their skills in a yoga ashram community and adding this valuable experience to their C.V.
A) Cook Responsibilities/Duties:
- His/her main duty is to prepare and cook a yogic lacto-vegetarian buffet style meal for an average of 200 to 350 people a day during the high season and 50-120 people a day during the summer season.
- He/she also supervises a group of 5 to 10 staff and karma yogis in the preparation, cooking and serving of this meal as well as supervising the cleaning and maintaining of the kitchen equipment and cooking dishes.
- The Kitchen Cook works under the responsibility of the Kitchen Manager.
B) Cook Assistant Responsibilities/Duties:
- His/her main duty is to assist and support the Main Cook in all of the responsibilities listed above.
- The cooks and assistants are expected to be open minded and interested in yoga, the spiritual path and living in a yogic community (i.e. attending meditations and yoga classes, etc.).
A minimum commitment of 3 months is requested for all positions.
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A) Qualifications & skills that we look for in a Cook:
Main Functions of the Cook:
- Plan menus under supervision of Manager
- Prepare and cook a variety of delectable yogic menus
- Adapt to the limited food and produce variety available on an island
- Manage and participate in the clean-up
- Overview stock and storage
- Keep the surroundings clean and tidy at all times
- Manage and support kitchen staff
- Determine division of responsibilities and tasks
- Coordinate and perform kitchen team training periodically
- Personally support and train the cook assistants
- Coordinate various tasks within time frame of meals
Job Skills:
- Experience in creating menus
- Cooking experience for larger groups
- Basic computer skills
Personal/People skills:
- Team management
- Able to create and maintain high team spirit
- Able to give and receive feedback
- Able to work with inexperienced people
- Very adaptable and able to improvise
- Strong organizational skills
- Excellent inter-personal communication
- Planning and foresight
- Decision-making
- Able to multi-task
- Delegation
- High personal hygiene
- Awareness and love of cleanliness
- Maintain a positive and friendly attitude at all times
Experience and Qualifications:
- Culinary arts diploma is recommended
- Experience/knowledge in vegetarian and Ayurveda cooking is a plus
- Physically and mentally strong
- Preferably can lift heavy weight
- Able to work and stand for long hours in a tropical climate
- Must be fluent in English speaking and writing
B) Qualifications & skills that we look for in a Cook Assistant:
All of the above but to a lesser degree as we understand that this is a training position but which presupposes the openness to learn and grow into the areas and responsibilities mentioned above.
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If you might be interested, please email us and let's discuss the possibilities: [email protected].
One thought on “We’re Recruiting: Cook and Assistant Cooks Needed”
Charlotte Hudson-Madge
I would like to deepen my spiritual practice and to see in the process of doing this, surrounded by like-minded individuals is a gift and one that I will deeply respect. Aum Shanti.
Charlotte Hudson-Madge
Hi. Having read your website information regarding this karma yoga retreat, I am wholeheartedly interested in being an assistant cook for you and to share and integrate my spiritual practice with you at this retreat center. I practice daily in yoga, meditation, devotional chanting, dance, journaling, and walks in nature. I study yoga and am yet to be certified to teach. Yogic lifestyle and the spiritual way of life is my journey of self-mastery. If I am to be entrusted with this divine service for you in this beautiful ashram, I wholeheartedly take responsibility for providing a selfless service from my heart. Peace be with you. Om Shanti!
Charlotte Hudson-Madge
I also have experience with working in kitchens, restaurants, and with cooking healthy vegan food at meditation retreats.
Suzanne Lee white
I’m very interested in the opportunity to serve. I’ve owned a small breakfast restaurant for 20 years . I’m very experienced in the kitchen as a cook or assist and cook even dishwashing and cleanup . I’m also a certified Thai yoga nasssge therapist and foot reflexologist & reiki master so I could also serve in that field as well. I’m looking to spend a month or more at the ashram in community and service as with like minded people as an offering . Om Shanti
Amy Skiles
Interested in karma yoga service.
Coleen
I am intereated in Karma Yoga.
I havr had experiences with Sivinanda in Canada and India.
I have many domestic skills and skills related to 30 years in nursing to offer.
I have studied 20 years with Sufis and am familiar with retreat, extended retreat and life in community.
Annamarie Aigotti
I just received my 200 hour yoga certification and during that time I learned about Karma yoga and felt a pull towards this as a way to express my gratitude for the experience. I would love to be considered as an assistant. I am an experienced cook and the kitchen is my happy place.
Ellie
Om Namah Shivaya,
Trust all is well. I am very much interested in this position and just came back from India.
Kindly let me know
Pranam
Ellie
Isabel Chavarin Garcia-Prieto
Hi. I would love to work and help at your kitchen.
I am mexican and I am a chef, with diploma long experience cooking for lots of people 500. Even though I am not an expert en vegan food, But I am a quick learn.
I do also practice yoga (7 years aprox)
I’ve been looking for a while a place like yours, where I can learn more about yoga, meditation and always willing to serve and to share.
It would be an honor to have all that with you
Steven Fischer
Serve Love,
May I be please be considered as a Karma Yoga Cook?
Learning Ayurveda Food as Medicine at Sivananda’s Grass Valley Ashram has changed my life. Friends and family are now considering Swami Vishnudevananda’s teaching of proper diet after tasking some of these recipes.
Thank you!
Daniel Damodhara Blais
Hi Om nama Sivaya. I wish the situation of the ashrama is good and you go through this sad natural event that just happened to your country. So, i am interested in going to serve in the kitchen, as an assistant, or in any other needs that you have. as housekeeping, garden, etc. I was serving in Canada Val Morin Sivananda ashrama for quite a long period, in Orleans (France) Sivananda ashrama for three months, in india (Madurai meenakshi sivananda more than one year, ashrama Guddur three months and in uttar kashi ashram, three weeks).
I would like to answer to your seek of an assistant in the kitchen. I was working in he kitchen in France as assistant, and in Canada i was often aassistant or just cook for quite a number of persons. I will say i am absolutly not chief cook. I was also assistant cook in different other places where i was serving.
I wqs quite responsible for many housekeeping works and i was working two months as helper in the garden in Canada.
I did my ttc, attc and intensive sadhana.
So i am free now to go serving, for the period you ask, three months, beginning october to the end of winter, i am free and ready to go. Just tell me when you will need.
my age is 59, i am in good shape.
om santi. Damodhara Daniel Blais.
Mylena De Rosso
Hari Om,
I did my Sivananda Yoga teacher training in the ashram in Bahamas and stayed afterwards as a Karma yogi, and worked as assistant cook in the ashram kitchen in 2016.
I would love to come back to the ashram in October/November and stay for karma yoga in the kitchen.
Since 2016 I have taken a Sivanda course in France related to the Yogic way of cooking and have a little bit of knowledge about ayurvedic cooking.
Please let me know about the procedure, I would be really happy to serve again!
Namaste
Coleen
Please forgive my mistake in Email adress.