In April, Impact Berry started to collaborate with ECO Vietnam Group.
Have a look, what Harry, their CEO tells us about Social Impact, Permaculture and empowering rural areas in Vietnam. Here are a few of our questions and corresponding answers from Harry we´d like to share with you:
1. Who, what and where is/ does Eco Vietnam Group?
"- ECO Vietnam Group is a non-profit organization that focuses on providing quality education for rural areas and genuine community development programs for those areas. Founded by people who share the same passion and enthusiasm to work for community activities, EVG takes responsibilities as a bridge of trust between volunteers, sponsors and disadvantaged communities in remote areas, including ethnic minorities.
We are based in the South of Vietnam and our works are at Central Highland and Mekong Delta Areas."
2. Why was Eco Vietnam Group founded?
"-The challenges of rural areas amongst others are connectivity and accessibility. And that is why EVG is founded to improve accessibility for those who stay in rural areas: quality education, opportunities, jobs, knowledge, technology, etc. EVG has built and run a Community Volunteering Center to achieve this mission. The center consists of numerous buildings such as community library, EVG multipurpose classroom and the community center. We organize different classes and workshops for not only local students but also adults. Those classes help the people here improve their awareness and knowledge for better job/income in future.
Introduction to IT basics to young monks in EVG´s library
3. How and why do Impact Berry and Eco Vietnam Group collaborate?
"- Impact Berry and ECO Vietnam Group share the same values in helping the disadvantaged people with respect and dignity. Hence, we discussed and talked. Impact Berry decided to help us in planting fruit trees in the Mekong Delta River.
4. How does planting (fruit) trees contribute the local economy of Tra Vinh province?
"The tree planting project is at Tra Vinh province - Mekong Delta Area. Not only, but also due to climate change, farmers face a lot of challenges, for example: unpredictable weather and degraded soil and/or trees. It is also because they use too much pesticide and chemicals on their farm. Hence, we want to help them to move to an agroforestry model. As simple as learning from the ecosystem of the forest and applying it into farming. We are planting different species of trees to create a rich ecosystem of the farm and at the same time attract helpful insects to help balance the farm life and therefore do not need to use the pesticide and other harmful chemical spraying, like the farmers at the forest plantations, where Impact Berry sources the Arabica Coffee beans.
But challenging is the funding for those trees and with the support from you through purchasing and drinking Impact Berry Coffee, we manage to get more fruit trees to support the approach and create a better and holistic farm system. With a well-functioning permaculture farm, other farmers in the region and abroad can also come and learn and move to a sustainable agricultural system."
Planting Papaya trees and lemon trees in the Mekong Delta Area
5. What are EVG´s goals for the next 3 years?
"- For next 3 years, we aim to increase impact on our work.
Currently, we´re focussing on three pillars of doing:
(A) Education:
Continue to provide free educational classes and programs for the local students in rural areas so that they can be more confident and full of knowledge when they come to city, either for studying or working
(B) Culture:
We help ethnic minority Race - named Khmer to conserve their culture through dance. We open a few Khmer dance class, all free for young Khmer people to learn, not only for dance but also for the history and good custom of the Khmer.
(C) Livelihood:
With a well-working perma-culture farmsystem, more famers will change to agroforestry and we develop agritourism and other more sustainable sales channels to increase their income.
Thank you for reading and kind regards,
Harry
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At Impact Berry we love natural farming. Take 20 mindful minutes and find out more about the surprising power of permaculture in other Asian countries, like Japan. The "abbreviated version of the internationally acclaimed documentary "Final Straw: Food, Earth, Happiness", shows interesting insights how to apply the simple but impactful method of forming seed balls and throwing them into nature can contribute to taking care of our earth.
Filmed by 2 great planet lovers, who quit their jobs in search of a better life - "in search of those who are learning again how to live as partners with this Earth."
Inspired by Japanese scientist, philosopher and farmer Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008).