Corporate Social Responsibility
Mar
World Water Day
Leaving No One Behind Leave no one behind this #WorldWaterDay by making a donation to the Clean Water Project run by the Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children (CBAVC). It has provided over 300 water wells to poor communities in the Siem Reap province. The cost of one well is $330, and with your help, we can build another well to provide clean water to communities in Cambodia. The Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children It’s a scalding hot day, and there is likely only one thing to help you beat the heat — an ice-cold glass of water. For many of us, getting a glass of clean water is as easy as finding the nearest refrigerator. For this reason, it may be almost impossible to imagine having to walk up to three kilometers for a glass of water — sadly, this is a reality for many Cambodians. About 4 million people lack access to safe water in Cambodia, and 6 million people don’t have access to proper sanitation. 80 percent of Cambodians live in rural communities, as well, making it more difficult to have access to clean water. Luckily, one man is trying to change all of this. Meet San Van San Van grew up in the Bak Angrut Village, a rural community in the Siem Reap Province. His childhood was anything but easy. His parents struggled to support their family, including San Van and his nine siblings as farmers. They were also dealing with the aftermath of a bloody civil war spearheaded by Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge. After six years in primary school, San Van was forced to drop out because his parents simply couldn’t afford to send him. He started working in the rice fields. In lieu of education, San Van found himself many of nights using his finger as a pencil and writing down some of the words in the sand that he remembered studying in school. This was a reality that San Van did not want for future generations, so he started the Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children (CBAVC). The Need for Clean Water Most of San Van’s community lives in poverty — access to education and health services are limited, and every day seems to be a struggle for many. “Too often, children are forced to drop out of primary school to work in rice fields to support their families,” San Van said. “Even then, such local families struggle to feed their children.” San Van was all too familiar with this cycle, but he realized that one of the ways to break it was to provide education; that is where the Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children comes in. Every week, this non-profit organization teaches 350 children for eight hours a day, five days a week. In addition, CBAVC serves 1,750 meals a week and employs six local education staff through their educational programs. What is the CBAVC “My passion is helping vulnerable children and disabled people in my village so they can have a better future,” San Van said. “With our work, we proudly help many students through primary and secondary school; allowing them to create hopes and dreams for a brighter future.” CBAVC was created in 2012 by San Van and five other volunteer Cambodian Buddhist monks of Wat Polangka. Since it was created, CBAVC has proven itself as a meaningful charity that is greatly needed in the communities in which it operates in. The Clean Water Well Project One of CBAVC’s largest…
Mar
International Women’s Day 2019 – Thailand
International Women’s Day 2019 For the International Women’s Day 2019 Mad Monkey Thailand interviewed many of its female employees to learn about how they feel about being a woman in Thailand. We asked them about what makes them feel strong, what they think about gender equality in Thailand, and how they think it can improve. International Women’s Day 2019 – Mad Monkey Bangkok At Mad Monkey Bangkok we conducted an in-depth interview with one of our receptionists, Nicha. Her responses gave us a bit more insight into the minds of women in Thailand. They also aligned almost exactly with UNWomen.org’s summary of women’s equality in Thailand, as you’ll read below in this article. Q: What is your name, where are you from, and what do you do for Mad Monkey? A: My name is Nicha. I am from Prachuap Khiri Khan province, which is in the south of Thailand. I am a receptionist here at Mad Monkey Bangkok. Q: How long have you worked at Mad Monkey Bangkok and what is your favorite part of your job? A: I have worked for Mad Monkey Bangkok for 9 months. The part of my job that I love is check-in because I can speak with new people and I can make them happy to stay with us. I enjoy talking to them because most of them are very nice and they are happy to be in Thailand. Q: How do you feel about women’s equality in Thailand? A: It seems like it’s equal but it’s not that equal. For example when women go into a bar they are looked down upon as if they are a “bad girl.” But if a guy goes into a bar it’s fine and there is no negative stigma for them. Another example is cigarettes. If women smoke cigarettes in Thailand it’s frowned upon but if a man smokes a cigarette in Thailand there are no negative feelings toward it. Q: Do you feel like men and women are treated equally in Thailand? A: In my family, yes, I feel like we are treated equally. However there are some more traditional families with values that put men over women in many situations. These families don’t care as much about the women and think that the men are the ones who should be working and making money while the woman takes care of the family. Q: How can Thailand improve on women’s equality? A: I think Thailand needs to be more open about offering women bigger opportunities. For example, in a professional setting women are not afforded the same progression as men because they are not considered for promotions at work as often. When men and women have the same opportunities for education and work they will be more equal. This may be difficult for Thailand. It is a very big country and a lot of the people outside of Bangkok have traditional viewpoints. Q: Why should women come to Thailand? A: Because Thailand has many friendly people and also beautiful places so that’s why you need to come to Thailand! Nicha wanted to make it clear that Thailand does not currently have full equality for women yet but she believes overall that the country’s equality is better than other countries. She mentioned how both men and women are able to be themselves in Thailand and that women are allowed do the same as men. It’s more of a matter of being given the opportunity. International Women’s Day 2019 – Mad Monkey Koh Phangan At Mad Monkey Koh Phangan we…
Oct
Mad Monkey CSR Quarterly Report | July – September 2018
Our team has been experiencing hyper growth in many of our operating countries. As we have been building our new hostels, we have been working hard to ensure that each of our operating properties delivers on our company purpose. We have significantly increased our internal communications regarding our community activities at all levels of a rapidly growing business and we intend to improve and increase this with further CSR training for staff. Existing Mad Monkey CSR funded projects will continue into 2019 and we will be adding some new projects that will benefit from direct funding from our local operations. These projects meet our key requirements of being sustainable and having a positive impact on our local community in the fields of education, conservation, environment, arts, and social welfare in an effort to address some of the treatable root causes of poverty in our local communities. Most importantly, all of our projects are focused on delivering a local and measurable impact on the communities where Mad Monkey operates. This allows us to closely monitor the tangible impact that donated funds deliver. Each new hostel has partnered with a local community project and our teams will be offering a wide range of events to support our partner organizations with fundraising, donating time and promoting the work of our partners. We know that our biggest opportunity to make a big impact in our communities is as a responsible employer. Many of our team members start their careers at Mad Monkey with little formal education or lack English language skills. It’s important for us that we continue to support our team members with the opportunity to develop skills and careers through subsidized education, training, and mentoring at work. CSR activities have been taking place with the ChildSafe awareness training programs for staff across Cambodia and Thailand. As a ChildSafe Business Supporter, we understand the importance of equipping our team with the skills to identify and provide help to children at risk. Mad Monkey is also keenly aware of global issues and working hard to reduce our use of plastic and encourage recycling in our business. We have been actively recycling all of our plastic waste since our first opening, however, we intend to take further steps to try and eradicate all single-use plastics from our supply chain over the next twelve months. This has proven to be harder in practice than it may seem in theory. Plastic use is very common in Asia; it’s not unusual to have a purchase of chewing gum placed in a plastic bag in many retail outlets. It has become clear that the first step will be to deliver training to our team regarding the impact of plastics to their environment. We have also been trialling solutions for replacing single-use plastics with limited success, and we are keenly monitoring the availability of sustainable one-time use products that will soon be available in Asia. To add to our internal efforts, our teams are also conducting regular beach and city clean ups in Mad Monkey locations as we continue to look for ways to reduce our ecological footprint. Here is a breakdown of all of our community activity during quarter three in 2018, including announcements of our new partnerships and activities. Mad Monkey Current Projects & Partner Organisations Mad Monkey is delighted to be supporting the following organizations, please click on the links to read more about their work. Friends International / Peuan Peuan Mad Monkey Hostel Bangkok, Thailand Mad Monkey will support this new project for school reintegration and non-formal education (support classes) for migrant children on construction sites in Bangkok.…
Feb
Mad Monkey CSR: 4th Quarter Report, 2017
We received donations for 12 water wells in rural Cambodia A huge thank you to everyone who donated funds to the Mad Monkey Clean Water Project over the last few months! In addition to the enduring generosity and support we receive from our guests and supporters, we saw a spike in donations around our ‘Jingle Bells & Water Wells’ holiday fundraising campaign. Remember, though – a water well donated in a loved one’s name makes a great gift, all year round! You can learn more about our Clean Water Project and our partnership with Trailblazer Foundation (the NGO that installs the wells in the countryside around Siem Reap) HERE. Our Phnom Penh and Siem Reap Teams became ChildSafe Certified As part of our new partnership with the ChildSafe Movement (a campaign coordinated by Friends International), Mad Monkey has made a commitment to run Child Protection training sessions for all of our staff. In October the ChildSafe team joined us at our hostels in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap for this training. The sessions were very enlightening and sparked great discussions that are still ongoing. The tourism industry plays a vital role in preventing harm to marginalized children, and we are proud to be doing our part to end child exploitation in Southeast Asia. The next step in this process will be for some of our team members to delve deeper into these studies, so that they can go on to share what they learn with our teams in Kampot and Koh Rong Samloem. We look forward to widening our Child Protection efforts further in 2018! We sponsored the Epic Arts production ” Coming Back Brighter” Mad Monkey Hostel Kampot is the Gold Sponsor of Coming Back Brighter, a moving production put annually on by Epic Encounters. The hour-long performance portrays Cambodia’s history and imagines its future through film, contemporary dance, and traditional Khmer Apsara dance. Epic Encounters is an inclusive dance company comprised of Cambodian performers, some of whom have disabilities. Epic Encounters is a social enterprise that helps to fund Epic Arts, Mad Monkey’s longstanding community partner in Kampot. You can learn more about Epic Arts HERE. You can see reviews of Coming Back Brighter and buy tickets HERE. Our Nacpan team took part in a big Beach Clean Up A clean beach is a happy beach. Our beautiful new hostel in Nacpan, Palawan enjoys a jaw-dropping beachfront location. We are dedicated to keeping it that way, so we take every opportunity we can to help preserve our local environment. At the end of December, our Mad Monkey Nacpan Beach team took to the shoreline to pick up litter and leave the beach looking a little brighter.
Feb
Mad Monkey & Cambodian Children’s Fund
What is Cambodian Children’s Fund? Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF) was created in 2004 when Hollywood marketing executive Scott Neeson saw an opportunity to affect change in a small Cambodian community. CCF is an education program that helps children and their families lift themselves out of poverty. What started as a school has expanded considerably, as CCF now helps children on every level from providing food, to medical services, to vocational training. How Cambodian Children’s Fund Started When Scott traveled around Southeast Asia in 2003, he found himself in the outskirts of Phnom Penh where he saw thousands of families living in poverty. Wanting to help, he bought a house for a family and sent the kids to school. He started flying back and forth from L.A. to Phnom Penh, helping one family at a time in an area next to a garbage dump. It was at this dump where children were searching for things to sell to help make money for their families. After seeing these kids digging through the dump day after day instead of attending school, Scott realized that it wasn’t enough to only provide a home or even help the children get an education. To really make an impact, he knew you have to start at the grassroots level — so he started a different kind of school. “The only way to provide lasting, generational change, is to ensure that whole families are lifted from poverty. CCF provides not only for the health and wellbeing of children, but for their families and community.” – Cambodian Children’s Fund The original aim of the school was to provide education for a few kids with his own money. Over the years, it has evolved and grown to two schools (a primary school and high school) with more than 2,400 students and 64 programs. Scott saw that for most families, education wasn’t a top priority. They were malnourished, without proper healthcare, and had other problems at home. His goal was to work with the entire family and to overall grow the community. It is with this intention that he created the CCF – both a school and a support system to get families out of poverty through education, community outreach, leadership, healthcare, childcare and vocational training. What does Cambodian Children’s Fund do? The CCF is so much more than just education. Because healthcare isn’t easily accessible, there’s a medical center where they see over 100 patients a day. They have a sponsorship program to match individual students with donors. Unlike most sponsorship programs, the CCF has a one-to-one model where a relationship is built between the sponsor and the child through regular communication. The CCF also has a Child Rescue Center to assist with childbirth, and a drop-in center where parents can safely leave their children while they work. The students also attend public school for half of the day, but every subject is taught at the CCF. The high school focuses on STEM subjects and even has a 3D printer for the students to use. Students are involved in leadership programs where they are required to do 100 hours of community service every year and the CCF helps soon-to-be-graduates find jobs. An Afternoon at Cambodian Children’s Fund School Every year, some of Mad Monkey’s staff make a visit to CCF primary school to present our annual donation to the class we sponsor. This year we stopped by in January. We walked up to the second floor to the computer room to see a dozen uniformed students experimenting with PowerPoint. Colorful…