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We Put 20 Primary Students Through School For 1 Year
Mad Monkey has a longstanding relationship with the Cambodian Children’s Fund. This energetic organization delivers education, family support, and community development programs in Steung Meanchey, one of Phnom Penh and Cambodia’s most impoverished communities.
The Mad Monkey Education Fund sponsors one of CCF’s primary school classes. Each year we make a donation that provides our cohort of students with classroom materials, art supplies, sports equipment, and access to the highest standards of education possible. This year we were able to donate $5586.42 to our classroom in Kampong Cham!
The funds for this annual donation are raised through a weekly event at our Phnom Penh hostel called the “Crawl 4 School.” The entire fee that our guests pay to join in this pub crawl is donated to CCF. Our service staff work tirelessly to make this event a success week after week. In May we took them to CCF to present our donation in person, and to meet the students benefiting from their efforts.
We got to visit the students during their computer class. While we chatted about the animals they were drawing on screen, we got a real feel for the impact of our donation. The visit was a rewarding morning for everyone. Some of our staff grew up in Steung Meanchey and were regular visitors to CCF’s community centre, and they were touched by this opportunity to visit again and pay forward the opportunities that they had been given.
We Got the Ball Rolling on Community Initiatives in Thailand
We’ve just opened Mad Monkey Bangkok, our first hostel in Thailand! As we ventured into our third country in Southeast Asia, meaningful engagement with the local community was our first priority. We are committed to being a part of positive change in all of our communities, and we’re excited to extend this philosophy to our Thai operations.
As we assembled our new team in Bangkok, all of our recruitment and hiring decisions were guided by our Company Values and our principles of equal opportunity employment. We are committed to our high standards of fair employment, and to advancing and empowering local employees whenever possible.
Last quarter we announced our new partnership with the ChildSafe Movement. ChildSafe is a global movement to protect children at risk in our societies. This cause is especially relevant to the travel industry, which can unfortunately foster child exploitation through orphanage tourism, “voluntourism”, etc. ChildSafe’s campaigns, like ‘7 Tips for Travelers,’ help tourists find constructive ways to give back to the countries they visit.
Mad Monkey is one of ChildSafe’s official Supporter Businesses. We’ve had a very productive meeting with ChildSafe Thailand about how we can extend this relationship in this new country, and we can’t wait to see where it goes. To begin with, all of our staff at Mad Monkey Bangkok will be taking part in ChildSafe Awareness Training in the coming months. We’ll also be appointing some key team members to become ChildSafe Certified Agents. The things we learn in these workshops will help us to have better dialogues with our guests about these issues.
We also have exciting plans to collaborate on awareness-raising events in the Khao San Road area of Bangkok. We’ll tell you more as soon as the details are sorted! For now, just know that it’s going to be awesome and eye-opening.
We Provided Clean Water for 28 Families in Rural Cambodia
Unclean drinking water leads to a plethora of health and social risks, which makes it the single greatest mortality threat to children under 5 in Cambodia. Many great organizations are working together to bring sources of clean drinking water to the the Cambodian families who need them, but we have a long way to go before this problem is solved.
Mad Monkey’s efforts to do our part to bring clean water to Cambodia, therefore, are ongoing. We are continually blown away by the generosity of our guests, friends, and family, and this quarter was no exception! We received several donations for water wells, and worked together with our friends at the Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children to see those wells built and put to use in rural communities around Siem Reap. Each well provides a source of clean water for up to 4 families.
7 new water wells were built in April, May, and June.
This brings our total to 267 wells built. Our ultimate goal is to build 500 wells.
Click to learn more about the Mad Monkey Clean Water Project.
We’re Keeping Students Safe in Nacpan Beach, Philippines
Our next hostel to open (in just a few months!) will be Mad Monkey Nacpan Beach. This dreamy beachfront property is located on Palawan in the Philippines. Construction is underway, but we’ve already ‘cemented’ ourselves into the local community…
Calatang Elementary School is the local primary school in the Nacpan area. In May our team in Nacpan donated cement, sand, and their time and labour to complete a concrete wall that was needed around the school. Now Calatang’s students can play freely and safely in their school yard.
Getting involved in this project was a great way to get to know our neighbours in Nacpan. We’re excited to build on the relationships we fostered here, and continue to look for ways to give back in this community as our business gets off the ground. Mad Monkey Nacpan Beach is employing local staff to head our building efforts, and will be hiring a local service team when we’re ready to open.
That’s all the updates for now! Thank you for taking the time to read up on our work in the community. If we’ve left you wanting more, you can join our Mad Monkey Hostels in the Community Facebook Group to get updates like these in real time.
We’ll be back with another CSR report in September. We’ve got lots of great things planned between now and then, so be sure to check back!
