Corporate Social Responsibility
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…
Oct
Mad Monkey CSR: 3rd Quarter Report, 2017
We Joined Forces with Trailblazer Foundation to Spread Access to Clean Water Across Cambodia Mad Monkey has a new partner in our Clean Water Project! We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be working with Trailblazer Foundation from now on to deliver water wells and water filters in rural areas around Siem Reap. Clean water is a basic human need, and yet far too many families in the Cambodian countryside struggle to survive without it. Current figures estimate that between 50 – 60% of Cambodians don’t have access to clean water. The ripple effects of this are far-reaching, as it affects everything from the spread of disease to a child’s ability to attend school. Trailblazer Foundation are addressing this issue one well and one filter at a time. The NGO was founded in 2004, and has been supporting sustainable community development ever since. Its clean water projects are allocated according to requests from villages themselves, and implemented by the all-Cambodian Trailblazer Angkor Team. This ensures that projects are undertaken with a sensitivity to local needs and culture, and that all economic stimulus is kept within Cambodia. Where does Mad Monkey come in? We’re dedicated to raising funds for clean water, which Trailblazer will use to build wells where they’re needed most at the time of donation. Our guests have an option to donate $1 to our Clean Water Project Fund at the time of our booking, and we run regular events at our Siem Reap Hostel to add to this fund. We’re also raising funds for clean water filters through our Kamikaze Tour of Kampot. Each of these donations adds up, and together we are making a difference. If you feel moved to make an even larger impact, though, consider doing what so many of our guests, friends, and family have done – donate a whole well! Just $290 will entirely fund a well that will provide water to a family for generations. See our Clean Water Project page and the Trailblazer Foundation website to learn more. Click Here to donate a well – and change a family’s life – today! We Delivered Water Filters to 12 Families Together with the Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children (CBAVC), another long-time partner of our Clean Water Project, we delivered water filters to 12 families in rural Cambodia. These filters are the final step in clean water access for a village family, as they remove harmful substances from the water drawn from the ground with a water well. The families will use this filtered water to drink and cook with. We dedicate $14.50 from every Kampot Kamikaze Tour that we sell to our fund for clean water filters, which are donated and installed once every quarter. If you joined this tour in the past few months, cheers to you – you helped bring safe and clean water to a family’s home! Our Bangkok Team Became ChildSafe Certified As an official partner of the ChildSafe Movement, Mad Monkey made a commitment that all of our staff would complete ChildSafe Training. They are, after all, on the front lines of the tourism industry – a prime position to make a difference for children at risk. Our Bangkok team was the first to dive in, completing their ChildSafe Awareness Training in August. The sessions sparked a lot of interesting debate, and the Trainers complimented our team after the fact on their genuine interest and active participation. Now we’re excited to share what we’ve learned with our guests. If you’re wondering what child protection could possibly have to do with hostels, we really encourage you to check…
Oct
4 Startups In Cambodia Driving Social Change Through Innovation
4 Startups In Cambodia Driving Social Change Through Innovation At Mad Monkey, our goal from day one has been to help the local community develop and grow along with us. We’re currently running a number of initiatives to help bring this vision to light, which we’ll talk you through later. First, let’s take you through these 4 other amazing startups that are changing Cambodia for the better… Startups In Cambodia #1: Cleanbodia Of these 4 startups in Cambodia, Cleanbodia is one of two that are focused on helping to rid the country of its treacherous rubbish problem. This startup was pioneered and founded by Kai Kuramoto, a “clean freak” who envisaged the grimey hole that the country would end up in if someone didn’t introduce a solution to the increasing waste problem. His ethical baby, Cleanbodia, is combating this problem by creating biodegradable bags made from the Southeast Asian root vegetable cassava. So fresh, and so clean… As opposed to plastic bags which seem to linger for eternity, Cleanbodia’s cassava bags disintegrate within 5 years. Still 1,852 days to many, but they are on the right track to a clean and shiny future. A few words shared with us from the squeaky clean founder, Kai… “Born out of a concern for the damage we’ve done to our one and only Earth, Cleanbodia was started as a way to bring eco-friendly ideas and solutions to Cambodia. We realize the amazing potential that Cambodians have to be a force of change for the environment not only in Southeast Asia but across the globe. We aim to help foster that change in a creative, dynamic, and sustainable way.” Startups In Cambodia #2: EcoSense Cambodia Fighting the trash wars side by side with Cleanbodia is EcoSense Cambodia. EcoSense was set up by two French expats, Maxime Lescouer and Pierre Faiyre, who migrated over to Cambodia to help rid the nation of its mountains of trash. EcoSense Cambodia was set up in 2015 and utilities natural resources, such as sugar cane, to create biodegradable food packaging. The startup is specifically targeting restaurants and other food suppliers, with the aim of defusing the waste war right at the the source. Here, Maxime explains to us EcoSense’s vision for a cleaner Cambodia… “With the strength of our commitment for Cambodia and its people, we aim, through the EcoSense Cambodia project, to provide a high quality biodegradable and compostable packaging alternative tailored to local needs and designed for professionals in the takeaway food industry.” Startups In Cambodia #3: Lucky Iron Fish Above is a brief TEDx talk (in the grand scheme of things) which deep dives into the medicinal magic that Lucky Iron Fish are bringing to Cambodia. Lucky Iron Fish was initially launched just in Cambodia, but has gone on to deliver its message at a global level. These little guys are swimming their way around the world to battle iron deficiency – a deficiency that can lead to the likes of anemia, impaired cognitive ability, and negative impacts on the physical development of children. So so good, yet so simple… One Lucky Fish can provide a family with up to 90% of its recommended daily iron intake for five years! And all you have to do to reap these rewards is make sure that the Lucky Fish is inside the pot, bowl, or pan that you are cooking in. Simple. Startups In Cambodia #4: My Dream Home Another one of our favourite startups in Cambodia, My Dream Home has been putting roofs over the heads of…