EXO Travel celebrates EXO Foundation Day!

On Friday 27th September, EXO Travel teams have celebrated EXO Foundation Day. A great opportunity to learn more about our supported projects in each destinations and to meet with their projects leaders or beneficiaries. It was also a time during which we have invited EXO people to express their wishes for the Foundation. Festive events were organized, as well as meaningful activities such as tree planting, building a playground for locals, supporting social enterprises and a lot more!

Vietnam
From the kitchen to our office! The young Vietnamese entrepreneurs that are being supported by the vocational training IECD has brought to us delicious baked croissants and shared their stories and efforts to become professional pastry chefs with us. 

CHANGE VN, an NGO working towards the protection and conservation of Vietnam’s wildlife, came to our office to show us a video of what they have done so far to create awareness on the protection of endangered species in Vietnam! This year, EXO Foundation, made an artistic twist by inviting our Saigon staff to spray-paint their old t-shirts with animal shapes, with the help from CHANGE VN’s artists.

Our team in Hanoi had a fun and hard-working day building a playground to contribute to young  generations well being: beautiful results! A big thank you to all for your contribution! 

Da Nang team went to Reform Center to learn about the many things that can be done with plastic that has been used already! Our three special winners for our Kahoot game on EXO Foundation received an EXO lunch box and bamboo toothbrushes! 

Japan

Our offices in Japan are collaborating with Terracycle and Lion recycling to get rid of our old plastic toothbrushes. Terracycle Toothbrush Recovery Program is a recycling program, collecting used plastic brushes and transforming them into items such as flowerpots.

Rewards points are given to collection partners according to the weight collected, these points can be used to donate to educational institutions and charities. During EXO Foundation Day,  all the staff received an FSC certified bamboo toothbrush in exchange for their plastic toothbrush!

Laos

In Laos, guest speakers from Lone Buffalo & Laos Cookstove came to present their work to Vientiane staff. 

Improved Cookstoves Laos is the recipient of our carbon offset credits. As for Lone Buffalo, it all started back in 2010 when the life of a selfless man, Manophet, inspired his friends to create a place where rural youth could be empowered: English classes, football team, Women Empowerment, Environment Awareness, Coffee Production… EXO Foundation has been a proud support of 2 English classes since 2016.

Myanmar

The very first event of EXO Foundation Day by EXO Myanmar was super successful. The first part of the event was raising awareness to all staff and guests by making the short presentations about EXO Foundation and the current projects contributed by EXO Foundation. 

Fun part was fundraising food market prepared by S-Team and souvenir market by the social enterprises. EXO Myanmar’s local guides, collaborative hotels and all EXO Yangon staff participated in this event and helped to raise funds for EXO Foundation. We provided reusable shopping bags made by used-umbrellas to all our staff as a gift.  

Cambodia

EXO Cambodia did celebrate EXO Foundation Day with our dear long term partner, Friends International.

After a full belly at their training restaurant, the team went to explore the new “Futures Factory” aiming to train the young generation to access a decent job and to welcome new entrepreneurs developing social and environmental business initiatives. 

The luckiest ones get locked in an “Escape Game” to experience the “Child Safe Academy” and have tested beauty salon with Friends trainee.

Thailand

Childsafe team came to the office to introduce their “Childsafe communities” project funded this year by EXO Foundation and we have also invited for short presentation Ms. Thannakarn Bella Vongvisitsin, Senior Researcher on Sustainable Tourism and Diversity Inclusion. At the end of the day, our teams enjoyed a Thai dessert corner with ice-cream and were given a bamboo toothbrushes!

Indonesia

All our team, in Bali and Jogjakarta celebrated EXO Foundation day through mangrove planting activities. In Bali, mangrove forests are a very important carbon sink. Moreover, they are unfortunately threatened by the Reclamasi project, a land extension whose ecological consequences and the legal aspects were vehemently debated and criticized in Bali. 

In Bali and Jogjakarta staff received some zero-waste kits when arriving at the office. They were then asked to share their wishes regarding sustainability in EXO and the projects to be supported by EXO Foundation. Then, the whole day in Jogjakarta and the whole afternoon in Bali were dedicated to mangrove planting and beach cleaning activities. Thank you to our team for their enthusiasm and thank you to our partners Respirasi and Forum Peduli Mangrove Bali.

Malaysia

Our teams both in Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur were pampered by a massage done by people visually impaired, a great way to support their socio-economic inclusion. In Kota Kinabalu, we had invited upcycle sabah to give a talk on waste management.