CAPACITY BUILDING

A core value of Indochine Natural is capacity building of marginalized and disadvantaged communities in our local community, and our focus in Penang is the intellectually disabled.

You may be surprised to learn that there are some 600 million people with disabilities worldwide, or 10% of the world population, with 400 million of them estimated to live in the Asia and Pacific region. If we then take into consideration the impact on families, then the lives and livelihood of more than 800 million people, or about 25% of the population, are affected in some way.

People with disabilities are poor because they are denied access and opportunities to education, income, and self-esteem. However, people with disabilities do have the capacity to become productive citizens if they are provided access to appropriate capacity building.

At Indochine Natural we have developed a method to turn waste cooking oil into a liquid household cleaning product, and we have trained the Stepping Stone crew (a group of intellectually disabled) in this methodology and turned it over to them as part of their capacity building towards becoming economically independent.

The long-term savings to families and society as these people become more productive will easily surpass the small investment that Indochine Natural has made in this project. And this is not charity; the relationship between Indochine Natural and the Stepping Stone crew is a business relationship.

You can check out more details on our work with the Stepping Stone crew on our website: http://indochinenatural.com/main/fair-trade/

Learn more about the liquid household cleaning product they make here:  http://indochinenatural.com/main/natural-cleaning-liquid/

This product can be purchased at all JustLife stores: http://www.justlifeshop.com/store-locations/

Or Online:  http://indochinenatural.com/main/shop/