Giving back in Southeast Asia

Each month a Travelfish.org writer selects a charity or non-government organisation that they believe does excellent work on their patch in Southeast Asia. They write about them and we donate $100, a small way for us to give something back to the region. If you're looking to give back too, please consider giving a little cash as well.

Jump to story list

  • Helping the Karen of Burma

    Helping the Karen of Burma

    It was a frigid winter day in the US state of Vermont when I first met with a recently resettled refugee family back in 2008. The resettlement program had told me they were Burmese, so I was confused when only one 17-year old family member could understand what was written in an English-Burmese phrasebook. I soon learned how they were part of the ethnic Karen minority, displaced by the world's longest-running civil war.

    Read full story

  • The Samui Prison Project

    The Samui Prison Project

    The Samui Prison Project (SPP) was set up by local legal firm, PKN Legal & Business Consultancy, to work with groups raising money to help prisoners in the Women’s Unit at the Ko Samui District Prison. The aim is to assist the prison in its own efforts to provide rehabilitation for female offenders through education, training and community support.

    Read full story

  • Helping Singapore's transient workers

    Helping Singapore's transient workers

    Visitors to Singapore always speak of its impeccably clean streets and ultra-modern architecture, but few know the secret behind the city-state's flawless appearance: transient foreign workers. As the wealthiest country in the region, Singapore is able to 'import' people from neighbouring countries to do its dirty work for wages of a couple of dollars per hour.

    Read full story

  • Helping Siem Reap's rubbish dump families

    Helping Siem Reap's rubbish dump families

    It is hard to believe that the village of Anlung Pi is just 25 kilometres from the five-star hotels of Siem Reap and the iconic lotus bud towers of Angkor Wat. Tourists don't come here, and they shouldn't. The village itself is unremarkable, but if you were to walk through the fields, just a few hundred yards from the neat, traditional wooden village houses, you would find yourself in the middle of a vast, stinking, rubbish dump. Sadly this rubbish dump is also home to an entire community.

    Read full story

Feature story quicklinks




Newsletter signup

Sign up for Travelfish Burp!

Our weekly wrap on Southeast Asian travel.
Click here to see a recent newsletter.