A belated Happy New Year to all of you from the UPLift staff!
2011 has come and passed, and with it a lot of new ideas, work and projects for UPLift in Mae Sot:
In addition to expanding the school garden program, we also learned about aspects of Natural Farming, especially the use of fermented banana stalk (FBS) and other fermented feeds to cut the costs of animal rearing dramatically. We were able to start a pilot project rearing pigs at Hway Ka Loke school in Mae Sot, which is going strong and set to finish in early 2012.
Finally, we teamed up with Room To Grow Foundation to enter the Project Inspire competition with a goal of improving women's empowerment and financial literacy for a nearby landfill community in Mae Sot. Using our creativity and existing experience with the community, we successfully secured a USD$10,000 grant at the competition, courtesy of UN Women Singapore and Mastercard.
Going into 2012 we look forward to continuing our efforts to empower migrants and refugees on the Thai/Burmese border regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender. We will keep you updated with more posts, pictures, and videos throughout the new year.
To close, this story from BRAC Bangladesh highlights several worldwide changes of attitude towards working with the "ultra-poor" by using small grants and skills trainings, as UPLift does.
