Grameen Australia believes in the power of business to save the world. We believe that all humans are born entrepreneurs – and when business solves a social need, entrepreneurship flourishes.
Who is Grameen Australia?
Grameen Australia tackles poverty and unemployment by setting up Social Businesses that use entrepreneurship for good. We are part of the global Grameen and Yunus family of social businesses inspired by the work of Professor Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with Grameen Bank Bangladesh for alleviating poverty through microfinance. We are an Australian registered charitable organisation with tax deductibility.
What is our contribution?
Grameen Australia has set up a Social Business that solves poverty - it is Cambodia’s only social business chicken farm. We recruit local dumpsite scavengers and train them in commercial chicken rearing.
BUT
We need to buy land to scale – and the only land available is rapidly being snapped up by commercial interests right now. We need to buy it before they do - so we need your help!
Local village contacts indicate this perfect land is in high demand due to its location close to Siem Reap. We are hearing that there are informal negotiations with a key commercial interest - we need to act quickly or we will miss out FOREVER!
There are at least 2,000 people in Cambodia’s poorest provinces, and many thousands over the long-term, who will benefit from the expansion of our farm.
If you help us, together we can drive major structural change in Cambodia to secure nutrition and rural income nationwide.
We are testing Social Business in Cambodia. If works there, it can work anywhere – including Australia. And if we succeed, we will cause system-wide change.
The Problem: An economic system that entrenches poverty
Despite the massive tourism influx to the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, it is one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia. People struggle daily to survive in dangerous work environments. Many young kids leave school to work on rubbish dumps to help their family survive.
We met families scavenging on the Siem Reap Dumpsite for USD $1.50 per day – per family.
All is not lost though. New hope comes from entrepreneurship and business.
The Solution: Social Business
We believe that ALL humans are born entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is at its best when business is used to solve humanitarian problems – this is called Social Business. All profits from social business are reinvested to increase impact.
Unlike a charity, where your dollar goes one way only, a social business dollar is recycled multiple times.
Revolutionary Chicken Farm Social Business changing the lives of scavengers
We established Cambodia's first Chicken Farm Social Business. It solves both a social problem and market problem at the same time. The farm employs 16 ex-dumpsite scavengers who have graduated from our training program. They manage the farm and have doubled or tripled their income from the rubbish dump by running the farm and selling chickens to local hotels and restaurants. Social Business has changed their destiny forever.
Two of our incredible farmers are Sal and Nak - their families lived in abject poverty on the local Siem Reap dumpsite where a long day of work by the entire family could only earn about USD 1.50.
Watch Sal's journey from disabled scavenger to senior farm manager below:
Watch Nak's journey from the dumpsite to deputy farm manager below:
We need your urgent help!
The farm has reached a crucial stage. To lift the livelihoods of 2,000 more people in the region by 2020, and thousands more over the long term, it needs to scale.
To do this we need to buy land – and we have found the PERFECT land.
It’s the only remaining available, well-positioned land to house our ‘layer farm’ where we will breed disease free chicks for our new Village Grower Farmers who will have access to training, mentoring and microfinance to build their own chicken rearing businesses to secure their future through stable, ongoing income.
It currently costs AUD $102,000.
However, commercial interests are buying up land across Siem Reap Province with our perfect block being targeted right now. If they buy it before we do, we will never be able to afford to buy it back off them.
Join the global movement
We need your help to urgently raise AUD $102,000 before the land is bought up.
If you help us, you will become part of this historic expansion.
With your help, together we will create global social impact.
Our Chicken Farm has three (3) Big Hairy Audacious Goals by 2020:
- Fight poverty: Help 2,000 local people to gain access to new income by selling their chickens into the booming tourism market
- Nutrition: Increase local access to nutrition to overcome childhood stunting and development loss
- Systems change: Scale up substantially to drive structural change in the chicken rearing industry to improve nutrition, increase rural incomes and secure food security in Cambodia.
The next stage is to empower at least 2,000 people to overcome poverty themselves by 2020.
We will scale our activities by developing a “Village Grower” Program. We will partner with families who want to escape poverty but lack the capital to do so.
Every farmer family will receive training in managing a bio-secure business and Grameen Australia's Chicken Layer Farm will provide them with disease free, vaccinated chicks.
Ongoing mentoring will ensure these families can build their businesses into successes – this not only secures their future, but also plays a role in the securing highly nutritious food for the region.
When we scale, the Chicken Farm will be able to help 2,000 entrepreneurial, capital constrained poor families by 2020, and many thousands more over the long-term, to develop their own chicken rearing businesses managing up to 1,000 chickens and at least doubling their incomes.
Why we need your urgent support
To achieve our ambitious goal we need to urgently secure key land to develop our ‘layer farm’ where we will breed our disease free chicks for our Village Farmers.
We need to raise AUD $102,000 to buy the land and secure the future of 2,000+ very poor, high potential entrepreneurs by 2020.
Our Village Grower program will not only ensure the families of Siem Reap Province can sell their chickens into the booming tourism market, it will also increase local access to essential protein and ensure safe food is available in Cambodia.
Please help us buy this critical plot of land. Together we can secure income, nutrition and food safety in Cambodia.
Let's prove that Social Business can solve the world's greatest problems and that entrepreneurship can propel humanity to a brighter future.
(Grameen Australia is an Australian not-for-profit organisation with Public Benevolent Institution and DGR 1 status, so donations over $2 are tax deductible to donors in Australia.)
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