It has been a wonderful year full of challenges, learning and success stories for MAD, and I wanted to share some highlights with you.
Environmental Impact:
We spent a lot of time focusing on reforesting in the mountains and seaside, and planted over 25,000 trees, 200 mangroves and have 4000++ seedlings growing.
The work of restoration has been met with positive engagement as one of our posts went viral - with over 30,000 shares. (Huge thanks to For The Future, Nadine and Bioten for this!)
On top of this we have been able to collect over 1.1 tons of trash from coastal areas. Innovating in events, MAD has also lowered plastic waste (no water bottles, avoiding plastic utensils whenever possible, providing refills, using banana leaves for snack packaging; designing schedules that need minimal or zero take out, reducing plastic waste by an estimated 500kg over the entire year.
Level Up Clean Up:
We're currently creating educational events that explain how plastic can destroy our natural world and economy, and to connect individuals and corporations to
1. Waste reduction enterprises
2. Waste recycling enterprises
And
Suggesting waste reduction behaviors
Awards and Citations:
MAD won several awards this year - the Siklab National Building award by PHINMA, WWF Force of Nature award. We also were acknowledged by DENR as a key partner in ocean clean ups and education + by DOST for helping build the Philippines reputation in the region when we won the APEC 2023 Circular Economy award.
Organic Farm in the City:
Our team has successfully built and operated an organic farm in Xavierville 2, Loyola Heights - converting small sidewalk plots (10sqm, 15sqm, 20sqm) into thriving organic vegetable gardens that have kale, basil, watercress(kangkong), eggplant, flowers, sunflower, moringa and calamansi. This is an effort to support local consumption and practice key organic farming concepts that will be applied in communities.
We are currently raising funds to help build an organic farm in Subic Bay with the Aetas so that we can start the Sunday markets in partnership with Lighthouse Legacy Foundation.
BioChar Innovation
In partnership with Sambali Beach Farm and Philip Camara, we were able to train the Aetas on biochar and deploy equipment to their village. We will be piloting biochar production soon. The material is used to enhance our reforestation program - specifically restoring soil for cashews and our organic farms.
MIT En-Roads Ambassador: Race to Zero Carbon
My time in MIT this year helped me lear new facilitation and education skills that can enable business owners and leaders on the threats of carbon dioxide pollution and how it increases risk to their businesses and quality of life. With the same tool used by COP negotiators and the Paris Climate Treaty, our team is very excited to help more companies speed up their transition towards the SDGs.
The Road Ahead
There's a lot more that's happened that we will be writing about in the coming weeks! thank you so much for your friendship and support! and if you or someone you know wants to help please share with them that we continue to raise funds for the Aetas and Dumagat so that they can build regenerative green economies that incentivize taking care of the planet while creating financial wealth - tea, honey, coffee, root crop and cashew products.
We intend to spend 2025 focusing on helping more corps come up with impactful ESG plans and more communities to grow their green businesses while restoring the environment! Additionally we hope to work with more state universities across the Philippines to empower students getting into the workforce who can help solve climate and economic issues.
We already have free information on solutions people can take here: https://madtravel.org/pages/resources
They can donate here: https://madtravel.org/products/reforestwithlegacy
or if they want to volunteer they can connect with us here: https://madtravel.org/pages/engageandvolunteer
Happy new year and have a great one! Would love to chat and brainstorm on how to make the world a better place :D
Raf
