We started our social entrepreneurship grant (SEG) programme more than 10 years ago. So far, the programme has successfully supported six new social enterprises including sustainable agriculture training farms, a coffee cooperative and an agriculture app for farmers in Myanmar. We believe that this programme is an impactful tool for community development because it focuses on sustainability, local empowerment, innovation and impact. Last year Marc and Daniel decided to manage this programme themselves in order to explore its potential further. Since 2017 we have received and reviewed 10 applications, of which two were approved and six are pending.

In 2017 we supported the establishment of a sustainable agriculture model farm in Rakhine State, which unfortunately had to be moved due to local unrest. Now the farm is fully functional about 30 minutes outside of Sittwe, a much safer area. Although it remains difficult to convince older farmers to adopt more sustainable farming techniques, the model farms have received a lot of interest from younger farmers and university students, who want to learn more about organic and sustainable methods.

In 2018 Child’s Dream agreed to support two Toyota Commuter vans for the first gap year programme in Thailand called the ‘College of Nature and Love’. The two founders, Pop and Fon, put together an interesting and inspiring one year programme. The participants are exposed to various community based and civil society organisations to learn more about environmental and social issues.