Sponsor FAQ

Read our Sponsor FAQ Before deciding if sponsoring a child is right for you.

Sponsor FAQ 1: Will I sponsor an actual child?

Alternatively, we can pair you with a new child arriving at Warm Heart or Ton Roong and introduce you.

Either way, we will ensure that you receive a profile of your child, photos and regular updates.

This will allow you to connect with your sponsored child and to establish a friendship that will carry a special meaning for you both.[space_20]

Sponsor FAQ 2: How much is sponsorship?

Answer: Sponsorship is $1,500 a year (or $125/month), which will provide your child with:

~ a safe home

~ nutritious food

~ medical care

~ clothes and shoes

~ school uniforms

~ books and supplies

~ extra tutoring

~ a library

~ computers and internet for an entire school year.

[space_20]

The post Sponsor Frequently Asked Questions and Answers appeared first on Warm Heart World.

VS

Using our method farmers are turning their crop waste into biochar.

Sequestering the biochar does more than bring down our CO2 levels, which scientists say is the most impactful solution to reversing climate change. The biochar enriches their soil, improves water retention, and crops grow bigger, healthier, and more profitable.

So far we have trained over 10,000 smallholder farmers how to make and use biochar. We only have 530 million smallholder farmers more to go!

We have launched our Patreon page for 2 purposes.

1. To raise money to continue and expand our training program. We are working with smallholder farmers in Thailand, Malawi, Kenya. Nigeria, Republic of Condo, Ghana, Tanzania. Our trainers go to rural farming communities to train farmers. The cost of training one farmer is $10.
2. To raise awareness of the benefits of biochar in our efforts to tackle climate change. To have the biggest, longest lasting impact we need to eliminate open field burning of crop waste globally, and replace it with the environmentally friendly method of charing crop waste.

We believe people are concerned about the growing impact climate change is having, but feel helpless to do anything to change it.

We also believe that given a chance people, like you, would be willing to help if they knew how.

By joining our Patreon community and committing to $10 a month will help spread biochar training and awareness. You can be part of the collective solution. The question you need to ask yourself is if saving our environment with a climate action that works is worth $10 a month?

Patreon is usually used to support individual artists. Why not use it to support the training of individual farmers? We are a nonprofit organization, all membership fees go directly to train farmers.

Join today!

The post Alternative to Open Field Burning appeared first on Warm Heart World.

The morning was spent in final clean-up of the park, with the Shangri-La Embrace team working with the municipality workers.

After clean-up the biochar was presented to the municipality.

P.J. from Warm Heart provided information on how to best use the biochar, and answered any questions.

Warm Heart is very grateful for the support from Shangri-La and their involvement and commitment to biochar. It is always a pleasure to be involved with community projects that are benefiting from biochar.

It was a fun and inspiring to see the community work together on this project.

The post Shangri-La’s Embrace appeared first on Warm Heart World.

December is a time for family and friends to gather together. People celebrate in many ways over the holiday season, depending on their cultural or religious beliefs.

But everyone shares the spirit of the season. It is a time for gratitude, giving and sharing, joy, peace on earth, and spreading good cheer to your neighbors.

We encourage you to make a statement this holiday season!

When giving gifts this season consider supporting one of the many groups of people who are actively working to help reduce the impacts of Climate Change. Spend an afternoon exploring these various projects with your children.

• Learn more about what each group is doing
• Make a donation in honor of your recipient
• Show your children that you care about their future

As members of the Global Giving family we recommend any of our partners for 2 reasons:

1) GlobalGiving performs rigorous due diligence on every organization in the GlobalGiving community in order to ensure they are performing charitable work in a transparent and accountable manner, and that they meet local requirements for registration with their local government.

2) These groups are actively working to reduce the impact of climate change over a broad spectrum. Supporting their work is an active step in creating a brighter future for your children.

We have 2 projects our our own, or you can choose from our partners projects. This giving season make your gifts matter. Help spread hope, read the inspiring actions these groups are taking to help make the world a better place.

Learn more about Sustainable Farming to Relieve Hunger in Malawi

Learn more about Stop the Smoke – Reduce Global Warming

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

You may remember Aesop’s Fable about the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse? When I visited this website that is what came to mind.

People choose where they are comfortable living, for the Town Mouse he was not satisfied with the food available in the country. When the Country Mouse visited his friend in the city he enjoyed the food but was terrified of the threat of the dogs, and decided it was “Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.”

What is the connection to climate change you may be asking.

We are all, country folks and city folks, impacted by the climate changes. We choose where we live, and each area has their own problems and contributions to climate change.

Here in the country we are diligently working on resolving one of the major contributors to global warming. We started off locally, and through years of trials and testing, we are on the verge of spreading our solution around the globe to all the country folk that have the same problem, how to eliminate the smoke from agricultural waste.

For city folks you are facing different but just as important problems. 

LAHomes.com has put together an extensive report Urban Heat Island Guide.

“As concerns about climate changes increase, focus has turned to minimizing urban heat islands and their impact on the environment. Urban heat islands are metropolitan areas with much higher temperatures than their surrounding rural areas.”

Their guide is clear and comprehensive, but best of all it offers solutions  (we really like solutions!) “Thankfully, there are nearly as many potential solutions as there are negative impacts. Explore the topics in this guide to learn all you need to know about urban heat islands”.

We encourage all of our city friends to read, understand, and take action where you can!

From our family to yours, we wish you a holiday season filled with love, laughter, and good health.

The post Archive Environmental Progress News December 2021 appeared first on Warm Heart World.

The post Wishing Star Program appeared first on Warm Heart World.

September 20, 2021

A giant step in solving the smoke problem

Our goal has always been to stop the smoke that comes from the agricultural burning of crop waste. Here in Thailand, we have worked with farmers teaching them how to make biochar instead of smoke.

In Africa, our program is spreading far and wide. Michael announced “Pastor Mahamba Waibera Evariste is the leader of our newest country team in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pastor Waibera reports that he has 46 churches, an agronomist, and a weekly radio show on “Radio Voix du Paysan.” I have prepared a 4 part PowerPoint training curriculum that his agronomist is systematically teaching at all of the churches and on the radio. (We will soon have it posted on our website.)

Also, Sister Paulette, who has been a driving force in Malawi and Kenya, now informs me that she has a working connection in Uganda that may turn into a country program there.”  The smallholder farmers are very excited to learn how to make biochar, as putting it in the soil greatly improves their crops. When fed to their animals, the health of the livestock improves. 

This takes us to the next phase of our Stop the Smoke. What to do with all the biochar the farmers are making?

The answer is simple – put it back into the earth! When biochar is put back in the earth it is sequestering carbon and helps bring down our carbon levels. Corporations and businesses, even individuals, buy “carbon credits” to offset their own impact on the environment.

We are extremely happy to announce Biochar Life as the next phase of our Stop the Smoke campaign.

To be able to sell our “carbon” we must provide a detailed account of from where and how the biochar was made,  and proof of the sequester of the carbon. We are working with farmers in Thailand and Africa to follow the steps required to qualify, teaching them how to document their process.

We use a blockchain process, which you can view and see the progress we are making on our Task.io  site. We encourage you to visit and understand how the process works. 

Michael further shared “As Biochar Trust develops and establishes itself in Africa, all of the implied production capacity of these new country teams bodes well for us and will certainly make a difference for some of the poorest people in the world, to say nothing of finally beginning to reach a scope that will make a difference to the climate itself.“

We are very excited about this next phase of our Stop the Smoke campaign, and appreciate that you have been with us every step of the way. Thank you for your continued support!

Warm hugs,

Dana, Michael, and Evelind

May 23, 2021

Friendly Trees Protect the Earth and Feed Farmers

When we started working in the Mae Chaem District, our focus was to stop the burning of the huge piles of corn waste so that we could stop the smoke forcing us to breathe through masks many miles away.

In addition to the PM2.5 pollution, the large-scale cultivation of corn has also created a number of devastating local environmental problems.

• Huge areas of forests have been cleared to make room for growing corn.
• Biodiversity has suffered as animal and bird habitats are destroyed.
• Soils have become depleted. They absorb less and less rainwater as forest trees that once allowed water to penetrate the soil are removed. Corn is planted thinly and – unlike the trees it replaces – provides no protection for the soil, which becomes brick-hard when wetted and sun-dried.
• This has destroyed watersheds, as the rainwater that once soaked into the ground now runs off rapidly, eroding fields and causing flooding downstream in the Center and South of Thailand.

We’ve talked with the farmers in the villages where we have been working and they are looking for alternative crops to grow.  But the risks of starting new crops are high and farmers have failed in the recent past with programs suggested by outside parties. Farmers commonly have a “show me” mentality, to reduce risk.  

Based on our past approach – working closely with the village council, we have an initial set of farmers, who have clear title to their mountain fields.  After a review of several alternative crops, the farmers and our staff have decided to test native shade trees with coffee, cocoa, tea, and other trees recommended by experts familiar with the local terrain. The farmers will be able to plant shorter-term crops around the edges of the new forests.

Your donations to support this year’s Stop the Smoke! Campaign will get these farmers started.  This year they will prepare the land – creating swales with biochar embedded in the soil to start collecting water. An initial set of trees is being purchased and will go into the ground to take advantage of the upcoming rainy season.

With gratitude for your enduring support of our work!

Dana, Michael, Evelind, and the Warm Heart Family

January 25, 2021

Stop the Smoke Campaign 2021

Warm Heart’s Stop the Smoke campaign focuses on removing the source of the smoke before it becomes a problem.

Our solution has been to provide farmers a way to benefit from their crop waste by turning it into a profitable product, biochar.

The process of turning crop waste into biochar is smoke-free and produces a product that has a multitude of beneficial uses.

The farmers we have worked with in the past will continue this year to convert their crop waste into biochar. They have reaped the benefits of adding biochar to their fields to improve soil conditions and increase crop yields.

Our goal this year is to continue to reach out to more farmers to increase the amount of crop waste that is turned into biochar, helping to eliminate more smoke from being generated through open field burning.

We are also developing a comprehensive project that will have even bigger, long term impacts on cleaning our air by reducing the amount of crop waste generated every year from corn crops.

Warm Heart will be leading a joint effort to restore forest land that has been used primarily for corn production with crops that produce far less waste and provide sustainable economic growth for the farming communities. 

Our partners in this project include Shangri-La Hotel of Chiang Mai, Pacific Basin Economic Council, Kad Kokoa, and Monsoon Tea. 

We will be putting forth a plan of agroforestry that will include rebuilding our forest lands with the following crops:

o Thai select cocoa

o Thai coffee

o Forest tea

o Pic Thai, green and black peppers

o Rattan

o Hardwoods

o Traditional tree fruits

Biochar will play a big role in preparing the soils. We will be working directly with select farmers to establish models to demonstrate how agroforestry can restore biodiversity, improve our water systems, create sustainable economic value, and yes, stop the smoke.

We hope you will join us again this year with your continuing financial support and help us Stop the Smoke!

Michael, Evelind, Dana, and the Stop the Smoke team

September 26, 2020

Biochar is Improving Food Security – Enriching the Soil, Nurturing Healthy Farm Animals

Everyone benefits when biochar is made because it reduces the smoke that fills our air!

The biochar itself has many beneficial uses, including improving our soils for better crop yields. It is also a great way to keep livestock and poultry healthy by adding it to their feed and living area.

In Northern Thailand, the rainy season arrived, and the summer months, when it is too wet to burn and make biochar, were spent using the biochar to improve soils and food security. Our programs made more than 100,000 kg* of biochar (100 tons) this year before the rains started.

With Covid19 lockdowns and travel restrictions, many people left the cities for their farming villages. The biochar team worked with local organizations on distribution to remote villages to be used in planting crops, making fertilizer, and animal feed.

In Mae Chaem, we traded biochar for a fertilizer that the local women’s cooperative is making from crop waste compost and biochar. We teamed up with the coffee growers, Akha Ama Coffee, on distribution and training in mountain villages in Chiang Rai province.

The Shangri-La Hotel, Chiang Mai, our first Corporate Sponsor, is having a huge impact with their donations of biochar to a tree planting reforestation program. (You can read about their success in our Environmental Progress Newsletter.) Their donation to the Chiang Mai Urban Farm is cleaning the water in a local canal and producing vegetables for urban dwellers shut out of jobs.

Since the beginning of June, our partners in Kenya and Malawi have held 28 training sessions, expanding their network by over 1,000 trained farmers. As the word is getting out about the benefits of biochar, and how easy it is to make, people are lining up to learn how to do it. Free training covers building a TLUD (from recycled oil barrel) and the simplified trench method, as well as how to use the biochar for fertilizer and in animal feed.

The beauty of the biochar program is that it is simple and can be adopted anywhere there is agricultural burning.

Your investment in this program makes the world a better place. We appreciate your enduring support; this is not an overnight solution but will take time to spread until making biochar instead of open field burning becomes standard practice, around the world. Thank you!

*Each ton of biochar keeps 5 tons of corn waste from being turned into particles of smoke – at 6.26 kg of PM2.5 particles per ton of waste, that’s 31.3 kg of smoke that is not going into the air each day. Each of those kilograms of smoke is the equivalent of 71,429 cigarettes. In addition, greenhouse gases have been burned off before they go into the atmosphere.

Shangri-la donation of biochar to recover forest

June 2, 2020

Lockdown Does Not Mean Shutdown!

We said, “Do something to Stop the Smoke!”  Shangri-La Did!

Keeping up with Gabriele Lombardo, General Manager of the Shangri-La Hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is hard. The wiry Sicilian never stops and never stops doing and doing and doing….

Warm Heart sat down with Mr. Lombardo in October 2019 to show him the terrible human and economic damage Chiang Mai’s “burning” or “smoke” season does to North Thailand and the hospitality industry, he understood immediately. When Warm Heart explained how the great hotels of Chiang Mai could stop the smoke, he said, “We will do it.”

So began the Shangri-La “Stop the Smoke” project that with Covid-19 has also become an important employment and jobs training program. Shangri-La supported the creation of two community-based biochar making businesses and bought their first 50 tonnes of biochar production. This alone gave a large number of unemployed young men in very poor villages an amazing 300,000 baht ($10,000) over two months and stopped – as in entirely kept from happening – the release of 313 kg of PM_2.5, the killer component of smoke. (Lest you have a hard time imagining a kilogram of smoke, a single kg of smoke is equivalent to the smoke of 71,429 cigarettes.)

Then Covid-19 arrived.

The country went on lockdown. Tourism stopped. Hotels closed.

Hundreds of thousands of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers, street venders, guides, chamber maids and waiters had no jobs. They did what people do – they returned to their home villages. But in the hot season, there were no jobs in the countryside and little food.

Enter Shangri-La.

What do you do with 50 tonnes of biochar?

Donate it, sure, but to whom?

With assistance from Aom Kwanpirom, Warm Heart Biochar Project Director, Shangri-La sought out small organizations training the urban unemployed to become farmers and either starting urban farms on empty plots or degraded soil near home. What these organizations need most is high quality soil amendment material to provide fertility to future gardens. What they need is ground biochar mixed with organic matter.

Suddenly, 50 tonnes did not look like enough biochar. Warm Heart found itself wondering how much of its own reserves were going to be needed!

Distribution started on May 29, with Warm Heart and Shangri-La staff volunteers helping with the hand-over and application.

February 3, 2020

Moving Forward!

The rains have stopped, and our teams are out making biochar from their corn waste – removing many tons of smoke from the air! Our first storage shed is ready to take in the output. Your donations have given us the momentum to attract additional groups to support our work and open markets for biochar products.

We started with one village and another village that we trained last year, has gone ahead to make biochar on their own. In Mae Wak, we have the corn waste of 130 families in huge piles ready to burn. The village set up a team of young men with 50 TLUD barrels from Warm Heart to make biochar instead of smoke. They make 500 kg, half a metric ton every day. The second village, Mae Na Chon is also making around half a ton of biochar a day.

[This daily ton equates to 5 tons of corn waste turned into biochar daily – at 6.26 kg of PM2.5 particles per ton of waste, that’s 31.3 kg of smoke that is not going into the air each day. Each of those kilograms of smoke is the equivalent of 71,429 cigarettes. In addition, greenhouse gases have been burned off before they go into the atmosphere.]

As the tourist industry is hit by the haze from the smoke – our once beautiful cities have grey skies and terrible air pollution – the local governments and hotel industry are partnering to address the issues. Warm Heart presented its program to have villages make biochar in exchange for advance commitments from business sponsors. This will help create markets for biochar and biochar products that have been a key component in the successful growth of biochar production.

Thanks to your support, we have an established program with feet on the ground and clear outcomes. Funding for additional villages to make biochar has been pledged and the specific plans are being completed.

Please tell your friends and keep the support coming in!

November 7, 2019

A Little Help From Our Friends

Our project in Mae Chaem is going strong. We are in the process of setting up storage for upcoming biochar. Mae Wak will start making biochar in December.

We have trained 141 people to make biochar so far.The estimated amount of biochar that will be created this year is 50 tons! 

We provided 10 tons of biochar mix to Mae Wak and now results are getting back to us that biochar is working well with their crops (Eggplant, green long bean, basil, pumpkin, cucumber, and flower).

The only way this solution will succeed is if a strong market is established for biochar. Our social enterprise programs are a great start to turning biochar into marketable products that will provide local employment and encourage farmers to make and sell their biochar to the social enterprises.

Meanwhile, in Africa, the Warm Heart Malawi Biochar Project has more than doubled the number of farmers it has reached, has been tasked by Government with an important national training mission, and has established Warm Heart Kenya and its first five training centers.

In Ghana, the Rural Renaissance Warm Heart Foundation is analyzing the first data from its test plots and preparing a grant proposal for USAID. We are working hard to spread the biochar solution not just here at home, but far and wide, as every farmer who converts to making biochar instead of open field burning is a win for the environment and the local communities.Your support has made this all happen.

We are so grateful for your initial contribution to our campaign. We are far from the finish line and are still seeking further funding to reach our goals. Together we can make it happen!Please continue your support with any amount of donation that you can afford. 

In gratitude,

Evelind and Michael

August 12, 2019

Surging Forward

Warm Heart is very grateful to have been invited to join this year’s inaugural Climate Action Fund project. We will be highlighting updates for you as this new program evolves.

In the meantime, lots of progress! Aom, our project manager, has been hard at work in Mae Wak village, Mae Chaem. The folks there are making the most of the 10 tonnes of biochar fertilizer we donated. She also has a couple of teams making char as fast as they can before the rain starts.

Rains Begin

Now that the rain has finally come, the growing season has begun, kicking off the cycle that leads to the burning season.

We are setting up one Community Social Enterprise to be ready to divert as much crop burning into biochar creation as possible.

Establishing a market for the biochar

Our biochar product line will soon be available in the largest “green” retailer in Chiang Mai, Rimping Markets. The price is competitive with “dirty” charcoal. But ours burns smoke-free, burns hotter, lasts longer, environmental contributor to improving our world. Establishing a market for the biochar is crucial to the success of the future Social Enterprises.

Moving to the Fast Lane

Warm Heart has the solution to the smoky season problem, a win-win fix that just needs to spread far and wide.

Shangri-la, one of Chiang Mai’s premiere resorts, recognizes the solution and has reached out to Warm Heart to help us put our solution to work on a broader scale. We will be working together with the heavy hitters in the community, to get everyone’s help setting up Biochar Social Enterprise Co-ops all across Northern Thailand.

But that is not all that has been going on.

Across the Globe

Our partners in Africa are making great strides in sharing and spreading biochar, teaching hundreds of farmers how to make and use biochar.

And they are having great results, too!

Thank you for your support. We need to continually be widening our audience. Please share with at least 1 friend!

Evelind and Michael

May 13, 2019

Fantastic news and a little bit of gosh darn!

Our first Farmer’s Cooperative is fully funded!

A huge thank you, YOU helped make this happen!

Our project is underway! 

Momentum is picking up, our Project Manager, Aom Kwanpirom Suksri, has moved on site and has officially begun organization of our first farmer biochar cooperative. Our goal is to set up a replicable model and help establish 9 more co-ops. We are on our way to funding a second co-op.

Aom was instrumental in the success of our preliminary Mae Chaem project in 2017. From teaching farmers how to make biochar ovens to overseeing the whole project, Aom helped lead farmers to make 150 tons of biochar.

Aom is totally dedicated to biochar and community development. Follow her on Facebook (links below) 

As far as the gosh darn news, we held 2nd place in the Climate Fund Challenge up until the last few hours, when we dropped to third. Big thanks to everyone who helped pull in last minute donations to try and hang on to that coveted 2nd Place.

All is not lost yet. GlobalGiving will be choosing 4 Projects from the top 20 to join #1 and 2 in the year long Climate Fund project. SO we are keeping our fingers crossed!

We are so excited to start this project, may it be the first step in bringing about real change in the Agricultural practice of open field burning. We invite you to take this journey with us!

Evelind and Michael

P.S. Want to continue to have a big impact on the success of this project? Choose an amount, $10, $15, $25, set it up as a recurring donation, and in the 4th month GlobalGiving will match your donation!

The post Quarterly Report – Stop the Smoke! appeared first on Warm Heart World.

September 13 – 17, 2021

Global Giving matches your donation up to $50 with a 50% match.

Matching Funds Week Was a Success!

September 18, 2021

We can not even begin to express our sincere appreciation for the support you have given our projects! We are very excited we were able to do so well with our Malawi project, thanks to some very generous donors we more than doubled what we were hoping for.

See the chart below to see how your favorite project fared!

Learn About Our Projects, and Pick a Favorite!

(Matching is over, but your continued donations will help us to move our projects forward!)

The post Snapshot of Matching Funds Week appeared first on Warm Heart World.

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!

The post Smile! Warm Heart’s 13th Anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!!! appeared first on Warm Heart World.

It’s time to start adding biochar in the soil. We put biochar around the newly planted trees to keep water, moisture, and nutrients for trees.

Learn more about our Agroforestry Project.

The post Before the Rains Come appeared first on Warm Heart World.

It is wonderful how people have responded to awareness of how bad plastic is for our environment.

One of the biggest achievements has been the reduction in the use of plastic bags, and other one-time use plastic products that are being replaced with natural materials better for the environment. This is especially true when it comes to food.

But what other areas can we focus on to reduce our own plastic use and contribute to the reduction of plastic waste?

This recent article “The Ultimate Guide On How To Go Plastic Free In The Bathroom” on the Friendly Turtle blog goes into detail of how we can make a big difference by simply changing our habits.

For me personally, I found at least 4 ways a change of habit can make a big difference. Check out the article and see where you can adapt to a “plastic free” bathroom lifestyle!

But don’t just throw away the plastics you currently have. We encourage you to repurpose your plastics, check out some of the ideas we have collected here for creative ways to repurpose plastic!

While it may not seem to be a big contribution to the battle to reduce plastics, every bit helps. You are just one of millions using the bathroom plastics, and when we all participate that is a huge impact!

The post Changing our Plastic Ways appeared first on Warm Heart World.