Mad Monkey was founded based on principles of positively impacting the communities that we are engaged in. The core purpose behind every hostel is to provide the best customer service, in the most sustainable way, for the benefit of our guests and the local community.
2018 has been a busy and exciting year so far for the Mad Monkey team. With new hostels opening in Chiang Mai and Pai (Northern Thailand), Sydney (Australia) and with hostels about to open in Koh Phangan, Siargao and Cebu this year, we are delighted that we will be able to positively impact more local communities in our areas of operation.

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. These children and their caregivers will be taught life skills, first aid (and be given medical referrals) and the opportunity to take part in sport and recreational activities. Some of the youth will be trained as peer educators with special knowledge on migration. Funds to support this program are generated by events in our Bangkok hostel. For more information about Friends International, go here.
 

 
 

Epic Arts

Mad Monkey Hostel Kampot, Cambodia

Epic Arts is an international, inclusive arts organization based in Cambodia and registered as a charity in the UK. Epic uses the arts as a form of expression and empowerment to bring people with and without disabilities together. They promote the message that every person counts through their inclusive education, community and social enterprise programs. Mad Monkey Kampot’s fundraising events will help support their annual theatre production “Come Back Brighter”. In addition, Mad Monkey will also support outreach workshops which promote the creative arts in education. Mad Monkey Kampot & Epic Arts are also collaborating to promote Epic’s work within our hostel by offering our customers Epic Arts merchandise products produced by social enterprise partner organizations. For more information about Epic Arts, go here.
 

 
 
 

CBAVC (Cambodian Buddhist Association for Vulnerable Children)

Mad Monkey Hostel Siem Reap, Cambodia

CBAVC is a Cambodian non-governmental, non-profit organization established by a group of Cambodian Buddhist Monks of Wat Polangka, Siem Reap in 2012. They help improve access to education and health services for the most vulnerable children, women and disabled people in the community. Mad Monkey Siem Reap continues to fund-raise for CBAVC to provide clean water to villages by building agricultural water wells in Siem Reap District. To date, we have donated funds from events and generated donations from friends and customers that have been used to build over 281 wells. We have also raised funds to deliver a further 20+ wells in Q4 of 2018. For more information about CBAVC, go here.
 

 
 
 

Cambodia Children’s Fund (CCF)

Mad Monkey Hostel Phnom Penh, Cambodia

CCF’s award-winning education program provides access to both formal and non-formal education to students from early-years learning to university. The CCF Education Program is designed to serve as a foundation for lifelong learning, preparing students for the world beyond CCF by enabling them to demonstrate CCF core values of care, excellence, integrity, respect, leadership, and teamwork. Mad Monkey Phnom Penh is delighted to continue our partnership by fully funding rent, utilities, teacher costs & materials for the Kampong Cham classroom for a whole year to help educate some of the most economically disadvantaged members of our community. For more info about CCF, go here and to read more about Mad Monkey’s partnership with CCF, go here.
 

The Rabbit School

Mad Monkey Hostel Koh Rong Samloem, Cambodia

The Rabbit School in Cambodia promotes the rights of children with intellectual disabilities. They work to provide them the same fundamental rights as their fellow citizens to a decent life, with equal dignity and access to education, whatever the origin, nature, or severity of their impairments. Mad Monkey Koh Rong Samloem will be fundraising to the end of December 2018 on behalf of Rabbit School for additional educational resources to support their programs. For more information about The Rabbit School, go here.
 



 

Solight Asia

Mad Monkey Hostel Nacpan, Philippines

In the Philippines, approximately 16 million people (2.3 million households) have no access to electricity. The majority of these people live in rural areas. Solight Asia has designed a little lantern with a huge impact. With sustainable and high-performance fabric, it is specifically engineered for durability, flexibility, water resistance and recyclability. Inspired by origami, the Solarpuff can be popped open easily without the need of using one’s mouth or pump to inflate.
Mad Monkey Nacpan Beach will be fund-raising to the end of December 2018 to purchase solar lights for local families without electricity.  Effective lighting results in children being able to study and read for longer periods. Fore more information about Solightasia, go here.
 

 
 

Trailblazer Foundation

Funded with Mad Monkey Hostel customer donations

In Cambodia, a country of fourteen million people, there are more than nine million cases of diarrheal disease annually, estimated to cost the nation about $450 million a year. One of the easiest ways to combat these diseases is to provide access to clean water. Trailblazer Foundation works with the poorest communities in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province at Angkor Wat. Over the past 12 months, Mad Monkey Hostels’ friends and customers have provided online donations that have built 26 villages clean water projects utilizing standpipe wells. For more information about Trailblazer, go here.
 
 
 
 

Mad Monkey Hostel Community News Feed

Check out other projects, events and organizations Mad Monkey has gotten involved in this quarter.
 

World Cleanup Day 2018

Saturday, 15 September 2018
This year’s World Cleanup Day theme was “Together for a Clean World”. This day was an opportunity for our enthusiastic Mad Monkeys across Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines to put the fun into trash collection and help to make our local spaces cleaner and safer. 
 

“…kudos to our customer rep Zama who even manages to get customers enjoying picking up trash!” [Bangkok]

“Love how the hostel ran a cleanup walk as well. It was a great way to see the city & feel like I was giving back” [Phnom Penh]

Staying Green for more than just one day, Mad Monkey staff keep coming up with great ideas:

Mad Monkeys in Phnom Penh loved trash-collecting so much they have now devised a twice-weekly Street Art and Cleanup Tour and everyone seems to love it!
 

 

 
And in Nacpan they’ve appointed their own pollution control officers to maintain a clean and green environment:
 

 

 
 

ChildSafe Movement

Mad Monkey Hostels has already established itself as an official ChildSafe supporting business in Thailand, Phnom Penh & Siem Reap.


With ChildSafe extending their work into other countries, we are pleased to announce our Philippines hostels will soon be joining us as official ChildSafe business supporters.
Congratulations to Sreay Leak and Lina, two of our Phnom Penh staff who received their certificates for completing the ChildSafe trainers’ course and can now give others the tools needed to protect children at risk.
 

 

 
During August 2018, Sreay Leak and Lina conducted their first staff ChildSafe training programs at our hostels in Koh Rong Samloen and Kampot in Cambodia.



 

 
 

Epic Arts, Kampot

On September 26th we were wowed by a special production by the Epic Encounters artists — a new work titled “In Softer Skin” created under the direction of their guest choreographer, James Cousins, from the UK. It was simply amazing!
 

 
We are now looking forward to the 2018 Show “Come Back Brighter” which starts its Kampot run in November, every Saturday evening through to March 2019. Mad Monkey proudly supports this production!
“Nothing short of an astounding and moving experience for the viewer”  Phnom Penh Post 2017
 

Emergency Disaster Relief

During August 2018, Lombok, Indonesia suffered a number of severe earthquakes causing hundreds of fatalities and destroying many homes. With Mad Monkey staff in the region and in partnership with our friends at TruTravels, we were able to move into action and organize buying and transporting urgent items.

A big thanks to TruTravels, Mad Monkey Cambodia, and customers who raised over $2000 USD to help us deliver tarpaulins, blankets, and food items to those in desperate need.

 

 

 

 
 

Monkeys Looking Ahead

Moving towards the end of 2018, we are busy identifying new partners for community projects to commence in our Philippines, Thailand and Australia hostels in 2019.
We believe in the value of education and the power of the arts to deliver life-changing experiences and we are equally passionate about keeping our spaces clean and green. We look forward to exciting partnerships that reflect our ambitions to support our local communities.
In the next three months we will be funding solar lanterns for Philippines families, promoting the creative production by Epic Encounters in Kampot, making sure The Rabbit School has more teaching resources, and rolling out more specialist training to our staff to increase skills in child protection awareness and equip our drivers with ChildSafe knowledge too.
More Mad Monkeys are giving time to trash collection in their local area and bringing great ideas to the business and we are constantly looking at innovative solutions to help to build a greener, more sustainable environment for everyone.