Crowdfunding Campaign
UPDATE July 25, 2018: Our crowdfunding campaign has come to a close. Although we didn’t reach our funding goal, we have made some amazing new connections and partnerships that we will be excited to share with you in the upcoming months.
This week Face of Indawgyi has launched a crowdfunding campaign create the first social impact guesthouse in Southeast Asia. For the last year, we have been working to build our team and create a model for rural development that could help communities around the world. Our campaign is an opportunity to do better, more impactful projects sooner.
The Goal
Face of Indawgyi a sustainable social enterprise aimed at promoting the welfare of the Indawgyi Lake region and its residents. It is part and parcel of a community based organization that promotes four main pillars: educational opportunities, cultural preservation, environmental conservation, and sustainable development.
Specifically, Face of Indawgyi seeks to establish a hotel school in the village of Lon Ton on Indawgyi Lake as a means of providing new career opportunities that exist nowhere else around the lake. Through partnerships with local families and experienced hospitality trainers, the hotel school will draw in additional foreign and local visitors to the region to effectively prepare the local economy for future growth not only in Lon Ton but around the entire lake.
Current Social Issues:
Around Indawgyi Lake, there is a huge absence of opportunity for children to find secure employment. Formal education for most ends before tenth grade and the majority of work is seasonal fishing and rice farming. Since these livelihoods are not enough to sustain families and their children, many have no choice but to work in the jade and gold mines near Indawgyi which continue to put workers’ health in danger and destroy the environment.
Another consequence of social immobility is the growing heroin and methamphetamine problem among the lake’s youth. A new source of opportunity is critical in confronting these issues, and a hotel school will provide lifelong skills for both students and educators.
Children helping with the plastic awareness campaign
Keys to Success
Our primary strategy to develop a successful hotel school is giving specialized community education free of charge. We will provide specialized hospitality courses to Indawgyi residents as young as 16 years old and offer an official certificate upon completion. As part of a two-year contract for training and employment, we will provide students a monthly stipend with half given for their personal use and the other half put in a savings account along with a completion bonus.
These savings are key in allowing children to start a new life where they have the option to either continue work at home or find hospitality jobs in cities elsewhere in Myanmar and abroad.
How You Can Join the Team
Our Four Pillars
Please visit the crowdfunding campaign page. This project is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia and this is your opportunity to help build it. We have some awesome perk packages like local e-cookbooks, private bungalow stays, slumber parties, and handmade items from Indawgyi for anyone who helps us build a guesthouse where everything goes back to the community. Check it out, spread the word, and contribute if you can. You can also donate directly to us here (and if you want a perk, just tell us which one you want!)