Smile! Warm Heart’s 13th Anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!!!

July 4th marks the beginning of our 13th year of building sustainable community development in Phrao and our local surrounding area. We had such a successful 12th year in spite of all the pandemic impacts we have all felt.

We want to share our successes with you to hopefully put a smile on your face. Your support this past year has put a smile on many, many faces!

But first we want to let you know we are kicking off our 13th year with a “Smile” Campaign! Our friends at Quine Corporation have chosen our “Young Smart Farmer’s ” project to highlight for the month of July in their “One Click for Smile” campaign. When you visit here and click on “Give Support” we will receive a 100 yen donation from Qunie.com. By clicking on the link you are sharing your support, giving us a nod with a smile!

A few projects that have put smiles on our faces this past year:

Young Smart Farmers

Our “Young Smart Farmers” project has been a very rewarding experience watching the children learn how to grow their own food. This is a skill that will last them a lifetime. Sustainable farming practices help ensure food security for our children, and their future families as they grow.

The children are also learning about biochar, how important it is to make biochar with crop waste and return the biochar back to the soil. Keeping the soils healthy and alive leads to better crop production and higher quality foods.

Your investment in the farm and the children are visible in the new farm plots and the fresh vegetables we can put on the table.  We are seeing the output rising steadily and our soil is improving from homemade biochar soil amendments and biofertilizers we make and use. For more details of how our year went please visit our Quarterly Updates Blog!

School Bus

Our school transportation issue was finally solved when we raised enough money to buy a school bus that would transport all of our children back and forth to school in one trip! We are so thrilled and grateful! This saves so much time and energy and really is a dream come true for us. Our school bus also serves the community with elder care transportation.

Graduates

We are proud to announce three more university graduates! Soda graduated in December in Public Health from Rajabhat University and has taken over the Warm Heart Project Access program full time. Faa graduated from Maejo University in Public Administration and is working in Phrao while studying for the government civil service exam. Earn graduated in Environment Sciences from Rajabhat University in Lampang and is assisting on the Agroforestry program while she looks for full time job. Mint graduated as well from San Patong Maejo in fisheries

The pandemic restrictions have slowed the college acceptance process, but we now have acceptances for all three high school graduates. Jaa was accepted in Science and Math at the Teacher’s College at Rajabhat University in Chiang Mai. Naan will start orientation at Payap Nursing School, also in Chiang Mai, in mid-May. Op will attend Phayao University in their law program.

Danai finished his first year in Computer Science at Rajabhat and his brother JJ will start this summer. Somphong just graduated in Electronics from Metro Vo-tech high school and will continue in their university-level program. His brother, Somkit, continues in the high school program and Jalan continues at Chiang Mai Polytechnic,

This is a big year for high school, with eight students graduating from 9th grade and all continuing. Three of the girls will attend vocational high schools in Chiang Mai, studying marketing and hospitality (Attitaya, Jitapa and Kai). The other five will attend Phrao High School. Three girls (Ying, Dachanee and Tangmo) have been accepted in the Math and Science track, Wannissa will study accounting and Somphop will be in the vocational track, studying welding, wood working and mechanics. You can follow our students progress and successes on our Quarterly Report page.

Stop the Smoke/Agroforestry Project

We kicked off our Stop the Smoke campaign this year with the addition of our new Agroforestry Program, addressing another significant area of the environment to help reduce smoke. You can read all about this new program on our site dedicated to the Agroforestry Program.

To kick the program off we held a Charity Dinner and Concert at the Shangri-La Hotel in Chiang Mai. It was a hugely successful event, with a fantastic performance by the Northern Thailand United Youth Orchestra. The performance was so enjoyable we are hoping to be able to do it again soon!

Under the leadership of Aom Kwanpirom Suksri, Warm Heart’s Director of Biochar, the program is steadily moving forward. You can follow the progress of all the Stop the Smoke projects on our Quarterly Update page

Warm Heart Malawi

Malawi has done a wonderful job promoting biochar and teaching farmers how to make and use it. But there was another significant project that you helped support this last year. Sister Miriam, who is director of our Warm Heart Malawi project, needed help buying additional sew machines to be able to make masks for her community. She also was hoping to raise enough to buy an incubator to help hatch eggs. You stepped forward and funded both her wishes, 1,000 masks were made and distributed and the chicken flock is growing!

You can follow the amazing story of Malawi’s successful biochar spread across Africa on the Quarterly Report page.

Core Competency Project

Our Core Competency project is moving forward and will be a big part of our focus this next year. We are working on final design of the program aimed at helping prepare young people for entering the job market.

English conversation will be priority, with a minor on reading. We are developing a program that will include Life Workplace preparedness skills including: Personal Finance, Self Presentation, Dress for Success, Work Place Behavior, Career Options, Creating a Resume and Writing a Cover Letter.

Graduates of our program will have several paths they can choose from depending on their level of skill and where their interests are. To follow the progress of this project check out our Quarterly Report page.

Warm Heart Awarded Grant!

We’ve got some great news to share! @GlobalGiving just let us know that Warm Heart Worldwide will be receiving an #AirbnbCommunityFund grant from @Airbnb! The fund is dedicated to supporting community-led organizations around the world.

We are delighted and grateful for this funding that enables us to provide safe housing at our children’s homes and focus our resources on the educational needs of our community.

We have deferred repairs on our children’s homes and water system (see Upgrade Water System below). Part of the funds will go to replacing the roofs and upgrading the electricity in our children’s dormitories to keep them safe.

The balance will launch the Core Competency program that improves the employability of our youth, displaced by the economic restructuring caused by the pandemic and generational poverty.

#Airbnb #GlobalGiving #nonprofit 

Upgrade Water System

Another project we will be undertaking in the first part of this new year will be tackling the inadequate water supply we are currently dependent on.

Thailand is getting hotter and drying out around us. As we are trying to increase our food security, our neighbors’ crops are shriveling it the field. Wells are sucking dry. Whole villages are running out of water.

When our rain water harvesting tanks ran dry in April, we depended on the local government water truck to cook, wash clothes and use the toilet. No matter how smart our “Smart Young Farmers” are, they, too, have watched their yields shrink without watering.

A new irrigation system will have far reaching impacts at Warm Heart. It will ensure that our current water systems continue to supply our daily needs into the future. Despite drought, it will make possible the expansion of our gardens and improve the quality of food we serve to our children at meals and our food security (critical in itself and for the budget). It will keep the farming program for our kids going and maybe open the door to include additional children from the community.

Through the generous grant from Airbnb and Global Giving we are using some of the grant for the initial money to get started on this project. We still need to raise an additional $10,000 to complete the project.

On July 14 Global Giving is sponsoring a Matching Gift Bonus Day. We will try to take advantage of this bonus money to help meet our needs to complete the project. We will be looking for large donations for this campaign. If you are able to commit between $500 – $1000 please let us know, and we will notify you when the campaign goes live.

Thank You For All of Your Support!

Your support is what has enabled us to move forward with our many projects. We have a busy year ahead.

Go to One Click for Smile and click on “Give Support” today! Let’s see how many smiles we can get for our Anniversary!