Celebrating 15 Years of Impact
July 4, 2008 – July 4 2023
“As we celebrate Warm Heart’s 15th Anniversary, we can’t help but reflect on how far we’ve come and it’s all thanks to you and your generous support. Today, we commemorate this milestone by sharing four powerful videos that Anne Bannister created for us showcasing the incredible work your contributions have made possible. Our heartfelt thanks to Anne, and every single one of you that have been on this journey with us over the last 15 years!” ~ Michael and Evelind
Warm Heart Children’s Homes
First in a series of the Warm Heart Children Stories: Nit
In a heartwarming story of success highlighting the importance of our Children’s Home. Our first video in the series showcases Warm Heart graduate Nit, who came to us from a rural village for the opportunity to attend school when she was just 15. Provided with the opportunity to learn English, Nit went on to attend university in Bangkok and will be pursuing her masters degree in Europe starting this year. Nit exemplifies the qualities we hope to instill in our students, and we hope this video makes you smile.
The Biochar Project
Our teams are currently working in Africa to scale up our program, having recently visited Uganda and The Gambia amongst other nations to work to educate farmers and train verifiers across the continent. As the harvest season also approaches in Thailand, efforts are in full swing to get the word out here as well. Watch this short video as Aom, our Biochar Project Manager, describes what we do and how Biochar is a scientifically proven solution to combat climate change while preserving public health and alleviating rural poverty.
Access to Care
We would like to highlight the work of Soda and the rest of our Access to Care team who provide services to the disabled and elderly in Thailand’s Phrao region. In this video, Soda shares stories about what motivates her work in public health and elder care. We invite you to watch this inspirational clip!
The Upskills Program
The Upskills Program has been in development in recent years, and we’re excited to share the progress with you. This video showcases our wonderful instructor Finn, who works with our kids every day of the week to teach valuable “soft skills” preparing them for stable jobs in the future. Each day after school, our kids spend an hour learning English, mindfulness, and other pre-professional skills. Tune into this week’s video to learn more about how Finn makes it happen!
Reflecting on 15 Years of Impact!
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the remarkable milestones we have achieved over the past 15 years. We are immensely grateful to the multitude of volunteers, donors, and our dedicated staff, whose unwavering commitment has fueled our growth and success. Thank you for your enduring support, which has been instrumental in our journey.
Children’s Homes
At the heart of our mission is the belief that every child deserves an opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential.
Our primary objective is to break the cycle of poverty by providing a safe living environment away from their isolated communities, where children can receive the education they deserve.
Highlights demonstrate the positive impact of Warm Heart’s support in empowering marginalized Hill tribe children to access education, improve their academic performance, and achieve long-term success in their lives.
Fun Facts
- Currently, around 90 students have access to safe schooling each year.
- There are 30-40 children in the residential Children’s Home, ranging from K-12.
- 20 students are pursuing education at vocational high schools and universities.
- 30 students are enrolled in another hill-tribe partner school (grades K-6).
- Over the course of 14 years, Warm Heart has provided schooling for a total of 917 years.
- Over 12,000 after-school hours have been provided by two teachers, six days a week, annually.
- Total students supported by Warm Heart over 14 years: 155, with an average of 6 years of support each.
- 100% of students complete 9th grade.
- 87% of students complete high school.
- 59% of high school graduates continue their education at university or vocational college.
- Currently (2023) in high school and post-secondary: 30 students (13 in university, 17 in high school).
- Post-secondary graduates: 17 (14 girls, 3 boys)
Outcomes
Warm Heart monitors the long-term outcomes of the children, including employment rates, income levels, and quality of life.
- The majority of graduates have found and stayed in jobs, even during the pandemic, and send money back to their families in the villages.
- Many high school and post-secondary graduates have found full-time jobs in the city, and some have traveled overseas for employment opportunities.
- One graduate received an Erasmus scholarship for a 2-year master’s program in social work.
- There is one working nurse and two students in nursing school among the graduates.
- Some graduates have started families and taken leadership roles in their villages.
- One entrepreneur has succeeded in marketing roasted coffee made from beans grown in the high mountains of his village.
- Three Warm Heart graduates have returned to work for us and another is now a teacher in our local school system
The Biochar Project
These highlights showcase the success of Warm Heart’s efforts in mitigating climate change, promoting sustainable agriculture practices, training farmers, and expanding their biochar programs globally.
With a strong foundation in Northern Thailand, where we began working with local farmers, our program has now expanded to Africa, making a significant impact on farming communities.
The initiatives have received recognition, achieved significant engagement, and contributed to environmental and community well-being.
Fun Facts
- Warm Heart’s campaign is recognized as the only active effort to remove the smoke from the air during the “burning season” in North Thailand.
- Received grants from the Government of Canada and the United States.
- Capped with the National Energy Globe Award (Thailand) in 2017.
- Online resources, including learning materials, videos, white papers, and monthly blogs, are accessed globally.
- Climate Change Primer downloaded 17,592 times, used in Brazil by the Minister of the Environment, and for programs in India.
- Video tutorials on making biochar, TLUD Biochar Oven, Biochar Fertilizer, and EM (Effective Microorganisms) have gained significant views.
Outcomes
- Training smallholder farmers in Thailand, Malawi, Kenya, and Tanzania, with 11,500 farmers trained so far.
- Farmers experience improved yields in crops and livestock production, sell surplus production, and prevent open field burning.
- Over 350,000 kg of biochar has been produced.
- Established a Public Benefit Corp (Biochar Life) to sell carbon credits based on biochar made by smallholder farmers, contributing $300,000 to local communities in Malawi and Kenya.
- Averted 1.8 million kg of ECO2 emissions.
- 500,000 coffee trees are part of the agroforestry project.
Access to Care and Wellness
Our mission is not medical, but caring. We do not believe that being old should be like a prison sentence to solitary confinement.
This program identifies elders and disabled people at risk and ensures basic nutrition and access to medical care.
We bring fun, music, games, and laughter. We clean bodies, homes, and clothes. We bring warm clothes and food. We do wound care, physical therapy, art therapy, check their medication and take people to the doctor. This sets up a model for rural care.
This program has grown since 2021, when we were able to fund a full-tine program coordinator.
In 2023 we added another full time person helping us reach more elder and disabled in need.
We are well on our way towards our target of 100 individuals and 1,000 visits.
Outcomes
Over the years, we have partnered with several organizations and generous donors to deliver:
- Vitamins to 1500 pregnant women and toddlers
- Prescription eyeglasses for 100 school children
- Mobility aids (wheelchairs, walkers, etc.) to 200+ elderly and disabled people in our community
- Clean water to over 4,500 people in our community through water projects with Engineers Without Borders
- Water Safety – so far 650 4th graders in 12 schools in Phrao have completed the course.
Highlights of Warm Heart Projects
The Upskills Program
We started with 15 students in 2021, during the pandemic, and now includes adult education classes for students returning to school, shopkeepers, public health workers, and our own Warm Heart children. The program is evolving as we learn how to best meet the needs of the community.
Microenterprise
The positive impact of Warm Heart’s Microenterprise program has been in creating market opportunities and generating income for women artisan cooperatives.
Total sales amount of $150,000, which has supported seven women’s groups over the years, involving a total of 50 individuals.
The program has also supported various groups and provided micro-loans to individuals, enabling them to establish businesses and meet their financial needs.
Visit Fashion Accessories by Warm Heart to see all of the beautiful products we have available!
Safe Swim Program
Drowning is the number one killer of children in Thailand. Warm Heart has partnered with CMIRC to teach the program developed over the past four years in public schools in Chiang Mai and Phrao. The target age for training students to swim and learn water safety is 4th grade.
Generous grants from the Australian Embassy’s Direct Aid Program (DAP), the British Community in Thailand Foundation for the Needy (BCTFN) and an anonymous donor, have supported the training of 650 students from 12 elementary schools in Phrao from 2019 through 2022.
The 2023 classes are underway, with 350 students signed up. That gets us to 1000 students trained in water safety!
Major Milestones
From Weeds to a Campus to Serve Our Community
When we started 15 years ago, we began with a piece of land, a lot of brambles and a few fruit trees. We started with bamboo and bricks, learned how to make adobe brick, experimented with recycling polystyrene waste to make bricks.
Today we have 20 structures that serve our children, staff, programs, and our community: Our main office, our education center (library, computer lab, community meeting center), our volunteer office, 4 dorms for the children, a kitchen/dining room, Dr. Shafer’s office (built with polystyrene/cement bricks!), Michael and Evelind’s home, and our microenterprise showroom. Plus, volunteer/staff housing, the biochar production area and drying shed, a pigpen, a chicken coop and storage for the farming tools.
Each year we add a piece, fix a piece. Last year we installed solar to reduce our costs and carbon footprint. The year before that we were able to purchase a school bus to transport all the children in one trip!
This year we continue with a big project to upgrade our water system to collect rainwater for our fields – Over several years we have expanded our farmland by enriching the soil with fertilizer made from biochar and manure or compost.
Now we need enough water for the fruit tress and vegetable gardens to increase our yields and grow a greater portion of our food.
This was all made possible with the support of generous partner organizations and donors like you.
Building a Brighter Future Together
Our Journey
Fifteen years ago, our journey began by listening to the needs of our community. We discovered that marginalized children from remote hill tribe villages were in desperate need of a safe haven and access to education. Breaking the cycle of generational poverty became our mission, as we recognized that education held the key. We also recognized the importance of increasing incomes for families and providing care for the growing elderly population and individuals with disabilities who had been left behind. Strengthening our community required a multi-generational, holistic approach.
Along the way, we embarked on numerous projects—some successful, some not. However, at the heart of it all was our unwavering commitment to the children who came to live with us or attend our partner school in Phrao, and to the community in which they were growing up. We provided several young people a chance to grow and learn in a safe environment, helped adults in the community to find meaningful work at home and the elderly to age with dignity.
We also turned our attention to the natural environment, looking for ways to reduce air pollution in our communities and encourage sustainable agriculture to address food poverty. Our biochar and agricultural program led us to Malawi and Kenya, where community leaders began to adopt some of the solutions we cultivated here.
Our Road Ahead
As we contemplate the road ahead, we have identified three key areas of focus for our future: Access to Education, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Access to Care for the Elderly and Disabled. We understand the significance of treating each area separately to ensure that we can find the right individuals to lead these initiatives and establish the most effective organizational models.
Warm Heart will continue to support Access to Education for the children who live in our home campus, as well as for those we support at local schools and in further and higher education. Additionally, we plan to expand our Upskilling Program, which will open the doors for more young people around Phrao to gain critical employability skills. Our investments in education have a lifelong impact on our children and they in turn bring knowledge, skills and a commitment to their communities.
Our Global Biochar Program and regenerative agriculture initiatives allow us to support Sustainable Livelihoods in several communities around the world. Our biochar program has given rise to Biochar Life, a Public Benefit Corporation. Through this venture, we aim to continue supporting smallholder farmers by providing biochar training and facilitating access to carbon removal credit markets. Warm Heart remains dedicated to training thousands of farmers, enabling them to enhance crop yields and develop drought-resistant techniques using biochar. As the global market for carbon credits matures, Biochar Life will expand its reach to farmers, enabling them to further increase their incomes by sequestering carbon in their fields.
Warm Heart will also continue to support sustainable livelihoods through our microenterprise initiatives, supporting small business entrepreneurs and connecting them with global markets.
In the realm of Access to Care, we are actively exploring opportunities to train caregivers and collaborate with local government programs to expand their reach. As with the other areas of our activities, we are eager for these initiatives to become self-sustaining. Programs that provide access to care not only uplift the lives of those we serve. They also provide essential support for whole families, create new jobs, and enhance the life of the community at large. By demonstrating the value of these initiatives, we are paving the way for future generations to take them forward.
Sustaining our Future
While the biochar business shows promise in contributing to our annual budget and supporting our core work with children, we will continue to rely on charitable contributions and grants for our programs. We are ever grateful to everyone who has supported us along the way, yet we must continue to expand our base of contributors while at the same time finding new ways to maximize the impact of donations through initiatives that lead to community self-sufficiency, job creation and opportunities.
At the same time, we are aware that in the near future, we will need to turn over the operations of Warm Heart to a new generation of local, community leaders who are already emerging. Warm Heart’s impact on lives is long term and multi-generational. Over the next decades, the work we have done over these past 15 years will continue to have benefits for the communities we serve, leading to a brighter future.
Please join us as we mentor the next generation of leaders at Warm Heart and continue to meet the ever-changing challenges that life will bring for rural smallholder farmers, their children, and grandchildren.
Thank you for your continuing support!
Your ongoing support is invaluable in driving meaningful change and creating a lasting impact. Together, we have the power to celebrate 15 years of unwavering community support and strive towards a better world. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to each and every member of the Warm Heart family for being an integral part of our journey.
Before you leave, we invite you to visit our donation page. By making a contribution, you can experience a profound sense of pride, knowing that your support will continue to transform countless lives.
Help us amplify our reach by sharing our inspiring videos with your friends. You can send them to our Youtube page Warm Heart’s 15th Year Anniversary , or share this page with them.
