NOVEMBER 12, 2016

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DESIGN PROJECT PROPOSAL

SUBMITTED BY:

SU MYAT SANDI OO (MYANMAR) IENG SOVATH (CAMBODIA) SUPARINDAPORN WONGYARA (THAILAND) VANGVICHIT KITTIKHOUN (LAOS) BAITULHUSNA (MALAYSIA) KOJI KOBAYASHI (JAPAN) ERIC B. CASILA (PHILIPPINES)

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DESIGN

TABLE OF CONTENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

PART I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is Sustainable Community? 5 1.2 How to mobilize resources to achieve Sustainable Community Design? 5

PART II. PROJECT BACKGROUND

2.1 Project Introduction 7 2.2 Common Issues in Myanmar 7 2.3 The reasons for doing this pilot project 7 2.3.1 Why vulnerable people? 7 2.3.2 Why Social Business? 7

2.3.3 Why Fabric? 7

2.3.4 Why Mandalay? 8

2.4 Area background of Mandalay 8

2.4.1 Geography and Population of Mandalay 8

2.4.2 Main Industry 9

2.4.3 Tourism on Mandalay 9

2.5 Textile Industry and Type of Products 11

2.5.1 The textile used for our project 11

2.5.2 Type of Products 14

2.6 Vulnerable people (Physically disable people, boarding school children, poor 14 single mothers & house wives)

2.7 Objectives 17

2.7.1 General Objectives: 17

2.7.2 Specific Objectives: 17

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3.1 Resource Mobilizing 18 18 3.1.1 Vulnerable People

3.1.2 Stakeholders 20

3.1.3 Natural Resource 21

3.1.4 Financial resource 22

3.1.5 Technical resource 23

3.2 Challenges among Resources 24

3.3 Possible Solution 24

4. 1 Strategy 25

4.1.1Business Flow 25

4.1.2 Project Timeline 28

4.1.3 Budgeting 29

5.1 SWOT Analysis 30

5.2 How to overcome our weakness and threats? 33

PART III. POSTSCRIPT

6.1 What we learned from IATSS forum project 35

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report focuses mainly on the project proposal of 7O2 or 7 Oxygen group with regards to the sustainable community design (SCD). The 7O2 geared itself towards sustainable development that will further improve the quality of life of those vulnerable people and give the much needed edge for them to be a greater participant in the local community.

The first part of this report is all about the concept and principles of SCD and its importance to the ever changing world due to many reasons like globalization, modernization and even climate change. The word sustainability, sustainable development and sustainable society have different meanings but serves only one purpose which is to meet the needs of our future generation. The three (3) pillars of sustainability are a powerful tool for defining the complete sustainability problem or issues in a certain community. This consists of at least the economic, social, and environmental pillars. If one of the pillar is weak then the system as a whole is unsustainable.

Moreover, the United Nations (UN) involving its 193 member states has agreed with the establishment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is officially known as Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which contains set of seventeen (17) aspirational "Global Goals". This clearly shows that all nations from all over the world believes that sustainable development is one of the keys in order to solve the problem of poverty, hunger, health, education, peace, environment, climate change among others.

The second part of report deals with the specific project proposal that aims to support vulnerable people and promote textile industry by maximizing all resources and creating SCD in Mandalay, Myanmar. The general and specific objectives of the project are aligned according to the social, economic and environmental situation of Mandalay. The information used are based on facts and data gathered along the study and meeting sessions. All interconnected resources such as stakeholders, natural resources, financial, technology and people are explained in details under the mobilizing resources section while the business model and process flow was included on the recommendation section. On the other hand, we strongly believed that the success of the project involves the financial matter. That is why the group has planned the budget requirement and proposed a three (3) years workplan for implementation of activities. Although the group decided that Myanmar is the target location for the pilot project, the established business plan could be applicable to other ASEAN countries like, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

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As a final point, the project proposal in Mandalay is inspired by the learnings and knowledge acquired from the seminar/lectures and study tour program of the IATSS Forum. The 7O2 of the 56th batch proposal included the idea of Regulus Company that employs person with disability (PWD). We learned in Toba City and Moku-Moku farm how to involve local people on hands-on job and revitalize their community. Likewise, the group was motivated by the product innovations of both Machiyas and GO-ON project in Kyoto. The group is also privileged to be part of the numerous workshops that enhance the capability and essential skill set needed for this final report.

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INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is Sustainable Community Design?

The sustainable community design is not a new idea. It had emphasized in developed countries in the last two decades. The sustainable community design refers to communities planned, built, or guidance modified to sustainable living. The sustainable communities focus on environmental and economic sustainability, urban infrastructure, social equity, and municipal government.

Hart (2012) contends that “a sustainable community seeks to maintain and improve the economic, environmental and social characteristics of an area for its members can continue to lead healthy, productive, enjoyable lives”. The term is sometimes called “green cities,” “eco-communities,” “livable cities” and “sustainable cities.”

Environment Economic

Social

Figure 1: Three (3) interconnected spheres of sustainability

1.2 How to mobilize resources to achieve Sustainable Community Design?

Mobilizing resources means identifying and prioritizing the available resources for use in continuing education activities and using these resources in the best ways that we can. Resources are usually scarce so we need to do the best with what we have. Not all available resources can be used. Resources need to be identified and prioritized according to the needs of the community and the continuing education activities. We can determine priorities for their use by considering their advantages/disadvantages, their feasibility and their

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practicality. Community involvement and education are very important to be good at mobilizing and managing resources. We can improve their education through training, either face-to-face or self-study. Training will help making resource management more efficient in terms of saving time and cost.

While utilization is another important thing we should consider. Utilization means using the resources well. There are resources that cannot be used again and therefore they should be managed with care. Resources should be mobilized and managed at the right time and the right place.

The process of mobilization and management can be done in a system that is called a delivery system. An effective delivery system requires good networking between individuals and organizations.

To be effective, the process must include the following steps:

Identification and/or collection

What resources are needed? What resources are available or already existing in the community? What resources are not found in the community and need to be obtained from outside?

Selection and prioritization

What resources will sustain programme implementation? What resources will be used?

What are the advantages/disadvantages of using these resources?

Utilization

How could we use the resources to the fullest? To what extent can the resources be used for continuing education? How can the use of the resources be sustained?

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PART II. PROJECT BACKGROUND

2.1 Project Introduction

This pilot project is a social business model where it creates sustainable community and sufficient economy by selling the high quality value added textile products made by the vulnerable people. In this project, we have touched the social aspect (vulnerable people), environmental aspect (smokeless industry) and economy aspect (social business) and they are all interlinked in this project which is coherent with our own definition of sustainable community design.

2.2 Common issues in Myanmar

 There is no job opportunity for vulnerable people and there is job discrimination on PWDs.  Housewives and poor single moms are unable to do full time job.  There is not enough money to sustain the monastic schools in Myanmar.  There is no initiative on value added products from the textile industry.  There is low living standard in Myanmar (Poverty – average $ 46.7 to 50/ 5200 yen per month per pax).  There is no proper government support for vulnerable people.

2.3 The reasons for doing this pilot project

2.3.1 Why vulnerable people?

 Because these are group of people that always been neglected, therefore, this project aims to make them self-reliable to survive by giving them chances to be involved in creating social business and gaining their own income.

2.3.2 Why Social Business?

 We believe in social business. The more people we help, the more profit to share and we can attract more vulnerable people involvement which lead to happiness within the society, and thus, creating a sustainable community.

2.3.3 Why Fabric?

 Because the knowledge & resources are available, but have not been maximized yet. We aim to promote it by creating innovating products from the natural resources.  Because we think fabric products can make easily at home by the vulnerable people.

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2.3.4 Why Mandalay?

 Because Mandalay has the most vulnerable people in Myanmar (8000 PWDs, 500+ boarding students, lots of housewives).  Because Mandalay has rich natural resources. (Several ponds around Mandalay where we can get Lotus for Lotus fabric, easy to get cocoons where they eat Mulberry trees leaves for Silk fabric, abundant resources for Cotton fabric)  Because traditional knowledge and skills of textile weaving are already well established in Mandalay  Because Mandalay is in the center of Myanmar, a good location for land and air transportation within the country as well as to China and India.

2.4 Area background of Mandalay

2.4.1 Geography and Population of Mandalay

Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar and it is the last royal capital of Myanmar. Mandalay is the major trading and communications center for northern and central Burma and considered the center of Burmese culture. Mandalay's strategic location in Central Burma makes it an important hub for transport of people and goods. The city is connected to other parts of the country and to China and India by multiple modes of transportation. Mandalay International Airport (MDL) is one of the largest and most modern airports in Myanmar. It serves mostly domestic flights with the exception of those to Kunming, Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Singapore. The Ayeyarwady River, which runs beside the Mandalay, remains an important water route for transporting goods.

Image 1: Myanmar Map

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Mandalay city is part of the Mandalay division which consists of seven districts, which are subdivided into 30 townships and 2,320 wards and village-tracts. Mandalay city area is 163.84 km2 (63.26 sq mi).

The whole division has population of 6,165,723 people (as of 2014) with the density of 160/km2 (420/sq mi) which rank number 3 among 14 states and divisions in Myanmar. Mandalay city population as of 2014 is 1,225,133 and the city's population is projected to reach nearly 1.5 million by 2025. Mandalay has ethnicity of Bamar, Chinese, Shan, Chin, Kayin and Indian. The religions in this area are Theravada Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam.

2.4.2 Main Industry

Agriculture is the primary economical source of livelihood. Primary crops grown within Mandalay Region are rice, wheat, maize, peanut, sesame, cotton, legumes, tobacco, chili and vegetables. Industry including tourism, alcoholic breweries, textile factories, traditional industries, sugar mills, and gem mines are also exist.

Among the leading traditional industries are silk weaving, tapestry, jade cutting and polishing, stone and wood carving, making marble and bronze Buddha images, temple ornaments and paraphernalia, the working of gold leaves and of silver, the manufacture of matches, brewing and distilling.

2.4.3 Tourism on Mandalay

Tourism now forms a substantial part of Mandalay Region's economy, as it contains many historical sites including Mandalay, Amarapura, Bagan, Pyin U Lwin, Mount Popa, and Ava. Here are a few examples of tourist attractions around Mandalay and please see them in the photos below.

Image 2: Mandalay Palace surrounded by a moat

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Image 3: Unesco’s World Heritage: The world’s largest book in Kuthodaw pagoda

Image 4: The romantic sunset with U Bein’s Bridge, the oldest and longest teakwood bridge in the world

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Image 5: The ruined Mingun Pahtodawgyi, unfinished pagoda from Myanmar

Tourist arrival to Mandalay in 2015 is 754426 which consist of 447994 local tourists and 306432 foreigners. As Myanmar is recently opening up, tourism prospect of Myanmar is very promising. These tourists are part of our target customers which will be explained further in this report.

2.5 Textile Industry and Type of Products

2.5.1 The textile used for our project

Burmese fabrics are famous for their quality for years. Myanmar keeps on modernization its processes in order to further improve textile quality and to confirm its benchmark status in the world of textile. Despite an economy which suffers from the lack of infrastructures, textile exports were up by more 30% between 2013 and 2014. Moreover, the association of Burmese textile factories (MGMA) now has more than 300 members and claims that two textile factories are created each week since June 2014.

Among many fabrics, we will choose cotton, silk and lotus as our textile sources. Our source of products are natural resources which are organic and very eco- friendly. We will try to educate our suppliers to raise the cotton tree in compliance with organic agricultural standards, to use natural dying and to maintain the ecosystem by replanting the trees.

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1) Cotton

Cotton is soft, breathable, natural, non-allergic, strong, versatile and insulating. It can be used for daily products. Please see cotton tree and cotton fabric in image 6 and 7.

Image 6 and 7 : Cotton and fabric made from Cotton

(2) Silk

Silk is luxurious, relief for skin irritation, shinny, smooth, anti-wrinkle and queen of fabrics. We will offer silk products as the exclusive products. Mulberry tree and silk production from cocoons can be seen on image 8 and 9.

Image.8 and 9: Mulberry tree and Silk production from cocoon

(3) Lotus

Burma is the only place in the world to weave this beautiful, spiritual and rare lotus thread (Kyar Chi) which come out from the mystical Lotus flowers. Lotus fabric is soft, lightweight, waterproof, highly breathable and wearable year-round and thus, it is one of the most expensive fabrics in the world. Please refer the lotus flower and the extracting technique of lotus fabric in image 10 and 11.

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Image: 10 and 11 The lotus flower and the its threads

The Uniqueness of our products is the creation of value added eco products from traditional Myanmar fabrics with Cheik Patterns as in the photos below and these products will be made by vulnerable community.

Image: 12 Myanmar Traditional Cheik Patterns

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2.5.2 Type of Products

(1) Main Products

Our main products will be clothing (shawls and neckties), accessories (earrings, key chains, hair bangs and bracelets) and bags (phone covers, tablet covers, small purses and sling bags). Please see the images below for the sample Products.

Image 13 and 14 Necklaces made from Kimono and Natural dye Shawl made from lotus fabric

(2) Products and services line up for the future

 New clothing, bags and accessories lines  Traditional textiles weaving  Tour to the shop where there is artisan’s workshop and offering hand on souvenir making experience  Bio – mass production from the waste (Lotus stem)  Lotus seed snacks production  Skincare and toiletries production

2.6 Vulnerable people (Physically disable people, boarding school children, poor single mothers & house wives)

(1) Person with disability (PWDs)

There are different types of PWDs and figure 2 shows the types of disabilities in Myanmar in 2000.

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Figure 2: Types of Disabilities in Myanmar

Our projects are for people with difficulties in moving 30%, hearing impairment 22% and numbness in limbs 9%. So, we touched more than 50% of the PWDs for our pilot projects. Figure 3 shows the number of PWDs in states and divisions in Myanmar.

Figure 3: Number of Persons with Disabilities in States and Divisions

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There are nearly 8000 PWDs in Mandalay division which is the highest numbers among other states and divisions. Therefore, we will choose Mandalay as a project area where the PWDs can have job opportunity with our project.

Image 15: Photos of person with disability in Myanmar

(2) Boarding students

Monastic schools play an important role in providing basic education for the poorest children in Myanmar, often at significant scale. Those schools accept street kids, children from poor family from various ethnicity and orphanage children from the cyclone Nagris affected areas. The schools fee are always free. The schools are operated by the donor money and usually, the head monk is taking care of donations. Sometimes, the schools have faced shortage of donor money. One of the aims of our project is to provide extra money to those school for the survival.

Phaung Daw Oo Monastic School is the famous example for the Monastic school in Mandalay. 9865 enrolled students and 422 teachers are in the academic year of 2016/2017. Among them, 506 children are boarding students. The monthly expenditure of the school is approximately USD 228,737. The school operates on donor money and income generation activities. The boarding students can do assembling part of key chains, earrings, hair bangs, and etc during their free time for one of the income generation activities for the school.

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(3) Poor single mothers and housewives

The single mothers and housewives stays at home and taking care of the children and thus, they are dependent on either their parents, husbands or relatives. They do not have the self- confident for working in the offices and they usually cannot apply full time job. Therefore, there are limited job opportunity for them. We create a home based job where they can work when the children are sleeping or going to schools. In this way, they will have job with flexible working hours and they will have their own income.

Image 16: Photos of a low income mother with her children

2.7 Objectives

2.7.1 General Objectives:

 To support vulnerable people and promote textile industry by maximizing resources & creating sustainable community design

2.7.2 Specific Objectives:

 To improve living standards of vulnerable people by using textile industry as a medium  To create innovative eco-friendly products by modernizing traditional knowledge  To utilize local resources (skillful craftsmanship and raw materials) to achieve sustainable community  To educate our suppliers (textile weavers) about preserving environment

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3.1 Resource Mobilizing

We have learnt what sustainable community is through IATSS Forum theme study such as seminar , field trip and lecture, conceptually the motto “Thinking and Learning together”, we have broaden our knowledge and found out the crucial elements to maximize use of resources by looking back to own countries.

Since we have group study for conceptualizing our learning reflection, individually we try to identify the issues from own idea on current challenges which might impact to relevant resources of community development such as Japan (koji san) – global warning, increase co2 administration, aging population, unstable economy, Lao (Chit san) - slash & burn (deforestation), chemical fertilizer (pesticide) Cambodia (Sovath san)– climate change, unskilled labor, low education, child labor, poverty, Myanmar (Sandy san) – Brain drain, low education & child labor, tourism promotion, revitalizing of tradition, human trafficking, Philippines (Eric san) – affected climate change (indigenous), urban planning, empowering people with disability, elderly people and single mom, Malaysia (Bai san) – unstable economy, homeless & poverty (urban), modernization of agricultural lands & urban planning, Thailand (B san)– climate change, eco-tourism, modernization on construction, infrastructure & pollution

Finally, we have chosen Myanmar as pilot test project and we try to think about resource mobilizing in Mandalay. The resource basically refer to stakeholders, human, natural, financial, technical resource. The following is the details each resource mobilizing in Mandalay.

3.1.1 Vulnerable People

In this project, we target people with disability, single mother, boarding students and housewives who are in needs. The survey will be conducted early 2017 to get real data of living conduction and willingness to attend the project following by the counselling approach for encouragement. Then, we will provide skill training, soft skills and hard skills through seminar, workshop, and hands-on experience sharing from volunteer as well as experts.

Image shows a person with disability and Cambodian housewife

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Training Needs = Desired Capability – Current Capability of the participants (To seeks to identify accurately the levels of the present situation in the target surveys, interview, observation, secondary data and/or workshop.)

Figure 4: Capability training needs assessment

Figure 5: Model of Curriculum Development

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Inputs of training:

 Soft skills such as people skill, problem solving, meditation  Hard skill such as craftsmanship  Community knowledge  Packaging  Administrative work  Marketing skills  Other training related to technology such using machinery

3.1.2 Stakeholders

To make this project become reality, we need strong support from all relevant stakeholders, local government, national government, NPOs/NGOs, Private sector, Academe-PHD. Government will be indirectly supported. We will work closely with NGOs for database of vulnerable people and seek for more possibility of asking for skill training and financial support. The cooperation approach will be implemented with private company for experts and technical training. We also need strong support from Academe for researching on specific case to assist off problem solving as well as new innovation.

 National government: Today Myanmar presents a strong sourcing potential for fashion & textile brands. Indeed, the country’s textile production is based on a world- renowned know-how and Burmese fabrics are famous for their quality for years. However, it is less supported from government in terms of financial and technical support, if we start up new social business.  NGOs: We will build networking and connection with Project Hub Yangon for training or technical support  Project Hub Yangon: PHY is Myanmar's first start-up incubator, running awesome programs which have helped Myanmar entrepreneurs launch scalable and sustainable businesses that have a positive impact in Myanmar. PHY is delivering start-up programs to Yangon University as part of the USAID-funded ADEPT program in partnership with the Kelly School of Business at the University of Indiana.  The UNDP Myanmar country programme, as part of its ‘Pillar 1’ Local Governance programme, includes under its Output 4 (Strengthened institutional capacity of institutions to support sustainable livelihoods and reintegration programs) activities targeted to enhance institutional capacity to create employment opportunities, particularly for women and youth.

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 Saunders Weaving School: One notable vocational training institution is the 100-year old Saunder Weaving School located in Amarapura Township in Mandalay Region. Weavings from Amarapura have a long history of being of high quality and the school enjoyed many years as a great vocational school producing high quality students. Now approaching its anniversary, the school’s importance and relevance to the region and the weaving sector overall has waned, as its infrastructure, machines and techniques have all become outdated.  MJCC “The Myanmar-Japan Center for Human Resources Development for Training Business Human Resources in Myanmar” The project will be implemented in Yangon, the commercial center of Myanmar, under the cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar and the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), with the objective of training human resources in Myanmar for enhancing their business skills. The Myanmar-Japan Center for Human Resources Development will be located in the UMFCCI's building, where its main activity will be providing business seminars for business people in Myanmar. Planned topics for the business seminars include marketing, finances and accounting, production management, as well as Japanese administrative and quality control methods such as 5S and kaizen. Experienced specialists will be dispatched from Japan for the lectures.  Phaung Daw Oo Monastic Education: among 8000 students, there are around 506 students who are vulnerable such as street kids, Ethnic kids, Cyclore Nargic.  Academe Institute: we contact to researcher at university to come and conduct more specific topic for improve life style as well as technical skills.

3.1.3 Natural Resource

Myanmar is rich in natural resources such as petroleum, timber, tin, antimony, zinc, copper, tungsten, lead, coal, some marble, limestone, precious stones, natural gas, and hydropower. Myanmar is also fortunate in possessing huge stands of teak and other hand woods. However, Weaving is a highly developed traditional art form in Myanmar. Among the Burmese, it reached its highest form in the production of lun-taya acheik cloth. The technique was brought from Manipur in the eighteenth century, but the complex motifs are distinctly Burmese. This style of cloth is still woven near Mandalay for sale to elite Burmese. There are distinctive textile traditions among the ethnic minorities.

In our project, we refer to the raw materials such as lotus fiber, cotton, cocoon to produce fabrics.

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 Main products: (1) Clothing like scarfs, hats, neckties (2) Accessories such as hair band, earing, keychain, bracelets, table cover, phone cover, bags/purse/sling bag  We planned to make it into 2 phase of production’s perspective (1) primary product which they are clothes and accessary (2) secondary products which will consider more about tour package, bio mass, snacks, skin care.

3.1.4 Financial resource

We are seeking for the possibility for source of money for operation such as:

 Bank – SME Loan ( $20000)  DBS Bank (prototype grant S$ 50000): Since 2012, DBS supported over 100 social enterprises in Asia with grant funding. Including the non-financial resources and business procurement opportunities that DBS provides, they have worked with over 200 social enterprises.  USAID - $10000. There are many different opportunities for funding at USAID  IATSS - $2000

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 Crowd Funding – Kickstarter.com (Kickstarter is an enormous global community built around creativity and creative projects. Over 10 million people, from every continent on earth, have backed a Kickstarter project)

3.1.5 Technical resource

Technical support from all stakeholders is play vital role to make this project happen, since we need to learn and search more about how to innovate both materials and final products

 ODA – USAID, GIZ, JICA (MJCC): we expect to have technical support as well as training expert for both seminar, consultation and mentoring service  NGO – Project Hub Yangon, Social Impact Myanmar: We need experts for training  Online shopping site (website)

We will have one own online and also commission based with other online shop like alibaba.com, amazon.com and the like.

 Social media specialist  Web/mobile developer: We will seek for internal source first and then outsource expert to design more professional and also maintaining.  Mail ordering system: We have learnt from Mokumoku farm business model. The company issue the newsletter every month and also introduce product to the customers. If the customers are interested, they will email back to order. We also consider various strategies such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the

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products are delivered to the customer. The products are typically delivered directly to an address supplied by the customer, such as a home address, but occasionally the orders are delivered to a nearby retail location for the customer to pick up. Some merchants also allow the goods to be shipped directly to a third party consumer, which is an effective way to send a gift to an out-of-town recipient

3.2 Challenges among Resources

 Vulnerable People: (1) because of poverty, they might face the health problem (2) lacking involvement other people in community like chief of commune, villagers who are expertise in weaving  Natural Preservation: (1) Tourist sill through the garbage into the lake (2) Mandalay might face with natural disaster like earthquake.  Technical support: (1) lack of fabric machinery, (2) technical training will take time for vulnerable people  Financial support: (1) lack of subsidy from national government, (2) funds from the NGOs will be not long term

3.3 Possible Solution

 Vulnerable People: (1) We will cooperate with Health Care NGOs to provide health check service about treatment. (2) invite the expertise and chief of commune to observe and open speech for community development  Natural Preservation: (1) raise awareness by media and seminar, (2) as we purchase the raw materials from the farmers, they will realize the value of their farm and tend to take care of it. (3) In our project we have several materials such as lotus fiber, cotton, silk so we will able to balance of usage of those materials (4) we need strong cooperation with local people and leadership skills from our team and local leaders  Technical support: we will start from invite the local expert who have knowledge of local product to share and cooperate with expert from NGOs on how to use machinery. For websites and online issue, we will start with internal use from our team’s expertise and might be employment requiring for maintaining.  Financial support: As we do not realize on government support, we will be sustainable by funding from NGOs and Banks. Anyway, we will use all funds for starting up points to build foundation.

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4. 1 Strategy

4.1.1 Business Flow

Buy local weave textile Production by vulnerable made from natural Sales : Online; Offline Customer people (VP) resources

The strategy of our project is based on our recent trip to Moku Moku Farm, which we learned how to construct our business flow and also our outline of organization. In our business flow, they are 4 major activities that would be running in this social business.

1. Buy local weave textile made from natural resources.

Since we are a creating a social business, we will buy our raw material, the fabric which are local handmade or machine made using fibre from natural resources which are mostly from cotton, cocoon silk and lotus. The fabric that we will be buying for our production will be niche into the pattern of Mandalay. We want to highlight and promote the significant pattern of these fabric to be sell to our customer.

2. Production by Vulnerable People

This fabric is then will be given to the production line which the involvement of the vulnerable people. Based on the production training, we are going to train the vulnerable people to produce innovative product using the fabric. Another problem we trying to solve is adding value to the current traditional fabric design by modernizing it and place it onto the daily use accessories for examples, earing, sling back, purse, bracelet and many more. Our aim for this is to increase more profit, therefore we could share it back to the vulnerable community and hope we could attract more of them to be on board and perhaps inspired them to start their own business in the long term.

3. Sales – Online and Offline

As this will be our pilot project, we will try to reduce our cost by selling our stuff online and also by putting it on other store using commission system. Some of our team members have experiences in operating and selling items of their business through online. Some of online channel that we will use are Instagram, facebook, snapchat and personalized website to sell the story of our project and also to highlight each vulnerable people in our organization to public and showcase their talents and product.

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4. Customer

We are trying to position our product from 2 based, average price as the market and also selling it exclusively thru packaging. Our aim is to do experiments at first to see which type of product could sell well and after several months or year, we would focus only for a type of product either average or exclusive. As for the start, customer could find our products in any partnering souvenir shops, department store, online channel and also by visiting our workshop to make a purchase.

4.a Average price

For this group, we are focusing on producing daily used product using the fabric, for example, pursue, bag, key chain, scarf, bracelet and earring. Our focused is to make it affordable for every status of people to buy it and enjoy the product. In regards for the affordable price, we are also going to make this group of products to be easily accessible at related shops and stores around Myanmar. Especially stores like local souvenir shops, local department store, boutique and perhaps the night market which is a new project by Myanmar environment.

4.b Exclusive Price

We are going to experiment with making an exclusive range of products to sell to our audience. Since it is under this category, we are aiming to niche our market into high-end tourist, fashionable people, trend setter type of community and young adult. The product will be sell at airport store, in-flight store and high-end souvenir shops. We will introduce sets of limited edition series of the product line up, perhaps we could collaborate with designers to help us in advising the design. Sponsorship for celebrity locally and internationally to endorse the product also will be one of the marketing strategy. Another partnership opportunity is by collaborate with the fashion designer event for example the Fashion Week Kuala Lumpur and others.

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Outline of Organization

Workshop, continuous training for VP

Sales, Production marketing and Line, creating sales by 7O2 innovative team to sustain products by VP the model

Based on this diagram, all three factors are interconnecting with each other in order for the organization to function.

1. Workshop

In general, workshop will be one of the important activity in our project. This will cover workshop for soft skill (communication, leadership, negotiation and etc.) , as well as hard skill (how to produce the innovative product and also the packaging). We believe that soft skill is the priority for the vulnerable community. We want to lift up their spirit, make them a confident person who accept themselves and could accept others, thus, in the long term, it would create a safe and happy environment working space for everyone. In the future, we are aiming for these vulnerable people could become trainer or coach for the new batch of other vulnerable people. We want to implement the concept of KOTO – Know One Teach One.

2. Production line

Our production line will be focused on more into creating innovative product. We want to create products with creative design, modern daily usage items and attractive to customer, but in the same time, we want to preserve the textile or fabric design culture in Mandalay, as well as preserving the natural resources.

3. To sustain this project, we have to make profit, therefore we choose social business as the concept. As for now, our team will handle the sales and marketing for selling online and offline. In the future, we hope we could empower and involve the vulnerable in this sales and marketing lines.

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4.1.2 Project Timeline

2017 2018 2019 202 0

Apr- Jul-Sep Oct-Dec Jan- Ap- Jul- Oct- Jan- Apr- Jul-Sep Oct- Jan- Jun Mar Jun Sep Dec Mar Jun Dec Mar

Data Collection

Proposal Location

Recruit Pilot Workshop

Web Development Website Implementation

Purchasing

Profit Analysis / Market testing

Product assessment

We are looking into 10 inclusive item to focus on for our project timeline. We are targeting to start the project on 2nd quarter of 2017 by doing data collection first. Type of data that will be collected are number of our target vulnerable people in specific area or village nearby, type of natural resources in the area, list of farmers working directly with the target natural resources and list of fabric sellers using cocoon, cotton and lotus fabric. How we are going to execute is by having Sandi as the head of the project to get number of local people to work with her in order to collect these data.

Next, we will use these data to improvise our initial proposal (which is this business proposal). Therefore, we are looking to spend a quarter year from July till September 2017 for revising the proposal for us to use it to request grant or loan from respective banks or other organizations. In the meantime, we will also launch the website development for 2 quarters of year and website implementation. We believe in order to sell our product, we will have to create awareness and also to let the audience know the story behind our project. This will help to gather a group of initial audience which will boost up our first sales and we hope they would spread the news and thus increase the audience for our website and social media.

In the 3rd quarter, October till December 2017, we will start hiring to fill in the vacancies in our organization structure. This recruitment is important as we are building the solid foundation of our business. As we learn from Regulus visit, we learn that they put more effort during recruitment to understand their future staff better since they are focusing on disability people. During the same quarter, we will also start looking for a location to rent as our workshop and also as our mini showcase area for our products. We aim to start small and expand by renting bigger space or owning our own space in the future. This is crucial for us in order to create a safe environment for everyone, especially the vulnerable people.

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The exciting time will start on first quarter of 2018 where we will start our pilot training. We will proceed with providing the soft skills training first. The reason we will focus on soft skills are because, we believe that we should shaped the inner confident in each individual and making them feel safe being together and also indirectly build a support group for themselves. The hard skills training will be following after few weeks after that. The trainer for both soft and hard skills will be from our partnership and collaboration with other organizations for example Project Yangon Hub, Limkokwing Creative Design University and others.

Purchasing of initial machineries and item also will be fall on the first quarter of 2018. We aim to buy few industrial sewing machines, items for sewing as well as first batch of fabric materials from local seller. We will do purchasing using whatever money with have and whatever resources we have first, we believe it is important to start the project instead of depending on waiting for the grant or loan.

After 2 quarters year of pilot training, we will proceed with our product development, this is where we will start producing innovative product such as earing and purse. We will then expand our lines of products after several months of product assessment, feedback from customer and profit analysis. We are targeting to put our product in two pricing group for experimental purpose. First group is product with average price with the market, and second is product with higher price which will be exclusives product with creative packaging, higher quality material and solid pattern.

As for the marketing part, we will start creating the online retail store as well as approaching others souvenirs shop around Myanmar to place our product on their shelves and using commission based system. Besides that, we will have a corner in our workshop to showcase our line-up of products for customer to choose.

4.1.3 Budgeting

Item Amount (USD) Research & Survey $ 5,000.00 Workshop rental $ 30,000.00 Marketing & PR $ 3,000.00 Online & Website $ 1,500.00 (SMS) Training $ 10,000.00 Equipment & Machine $13,000.00 Raw materials $ 6,000.00 Salary $ 45,000.00 Miscellaneous $ 1,500.00 GRAND TOTAL $ 70,000.00

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In this project budgeting above, we are calculating it for 3 years timeline in total. The $5,000 amount in Research & Survey will be use mostly for the site visits, to pay the local people that are helping Sandi to do the surveys as well as their logistic. As for the Workshop Rental total $30,000 , we calculate it for 30months, and the workshop place will be used for training, showcase our product as well as our headquarter in Mandalay. The Marketing and PR amounting 3,000.00 will be used to spread the words about our project, to print posters, flyers and stuff related to it. While we will only put in $1,500.00 for Online & Website which we will buy the 3 years website package to build the website and we will also pump in some money in social media, especially in Facebook to get more audience. We are putting aside $10,000.00 for training in 3 years, this amount will cover paying trainer’s logistic and accommodation. Equipment and Machine will be using $13,000 as initial, once we get the grant or loans. Example of items to buy are industrial sewing machine and items for tailoring to be given to the vulnerable people, so they will not have to prepare it by themselves. The initial Raw Materials purchasing will be total $6,000.00 which will mostly spend on buying fabrics from the local producers of fabrics around Mandalay. The Salary payment amount $45,000 will only start in October 2017 until March 2020 which is total 30 months. We are setting aside $1,500.00 as miscellaneous in case of emergency. In total, we are looking at spending total amount of $115,000 for the whole cycle of 3 years from April 2017 until March 2020. We are hoping to increase these number in the future once our social business stable in few quarters of year.

5.1 SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis has been widely accepted and applied in different contexts, from individual to organization and community levels (Stuart & Moran, 2002). The adoption of SWOT matrix for our business plan aims to critically analyse its strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats relating to social, economic, communication, infrastructure, human development and cultural resources. While strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, opportunities and threats are external factors that constantly impact on the whole project.

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Strength Weakness

 Rich Natural resources  No government support  Traditional knowledge and skill  Lack of financial support about the textile  No physical store to promote product  Experienced from the social  Minimum resources on technology business entrepreneur and machine  Network connection  Creativity and innovation

Opportunity Threats

 Scalable project (Vulnerable  Competition with other companies people) & More vulnerable people  Climate change engagement  Resource Mismanagement  Can be implemented in other

countries  Preserving the culture

Strength

 Rich Natural resources: There are a lot of natural resources in the area of Mandalay, lotus, cocoon and cotton are available. In different areas of raw materials, we will be able to get them all year.  Traditional knowledge and skill about the textile: The local vulnerable people have their own basic knowledge and skill to do the fabric products.  Experienced from the social business entrepreneur: As in our group has expert and the social business entrepreneur so we believe that they can contribute their know- how to do the business project to the community  Network connection: Our group members have connection with some NGO/NPO to raise the fund and also support our project.  Creativity and innovation: We exposed how to create and modernize the traditional culture products. We experienced and had knowledge on how to innovate the product as well as we have some innovative products in the market that we can learn from. Then, we are able to improve and develop our products in the way of attractive products to tourist and buyer.

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Weakness

 No government support: As Myanmar does not have local government and national government does not focus on the living of vulnerable people. In addition, we learned from all field studies, we found that the private sector is able to proceed effectively in sustainable community so it is a main reason why we come up with business plan. However, if we can get the involvement from government such as production certify process or product promotion, it would be better.  Financial support: Finance is the material factor which directly decides the developing speed of a project; therefore, lack of financial support is always a concern for any communities.  No physical store to promote product: There is no store available at the starting of project so we need some budget to build up the store  Minimum resources in Technology & Machine: We need to add some technology and machine for fabric production process even the inefficiency of using technology can be a waste in this modern era. But to take advantage of technology might shorten the conducting time or reduce labour-saving.

Opportunity

 Scalable project (Vulnerable people): Our project aims to support vulnerable people especially physical disability people, low-income single mom and housewives in the community so we can scale it to other types of people with disability such as intellectual disability and mental disorder in the next phase. The vulnerable people are group of people that always been neglected, therefore, this project aims to make them self-reliable to survive by giving them chance to be involved in creating social business and gaining their own income.  Can be implemented in other countries: Our project will be the pilot project and be feasible to apply in other ASEAN countries since the common environment and raw materials are similar.  Preserving the culture: We are able to sustain the traditional culture and way of life of people by maximizing their knowledge into our project. Therefore, we aim to preserve the traditional knowledge and culture to add in our product. The local people will be proud on the products they have done.

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Threats

 Competition with other companies: In the market, it is feasible to compete by other companies on our products but we need to be innovative on our product and business.  Climate change: This issue has become a serious matter in any parts of the world. Climate change can affect the natural ecological system, people’s health and lives. In case of our project, climate change can be affected to the raw materials to produce products.  Resource Mismanagement: In terms of utilizing and maximizing all resources, we need to ensure on resources management. Over usage of resources can cause of resource mismanagement problem so this is the main point we need to concern. Sustainable development also calls for maintaining life-supporting ecosystems and to ensure that current activities allow for regeneration and restoration of resources. This then requires current resources to be consumed within limitation so that the impact of human activities should not exhaust resources completely.

5.2 How to overcome our weakness and threats?

Weakness

We believe that once the project is successful, the government will attract in our project and support in terms of promotion as well as store areas. We are able to collaborate with some industrial factories in order to utilize their technologies and machines to support on weaving works. Mandalay City has very good infrastructure in terms of road networks, bridges, technology, and transportation. However, it is necessary to review and enhance current policies for infrastructure in order to create a tourist-friendly and people-oriented facility that promotes mobility in all aspects. To become high mobility does not need to be highly dependent in technology. It is more about finding creative ways on how to enhance people’s access to information; how to increase participation to local development process; and how to ensure safety for all ages, gender, cultures and race.

Threats

In terms of competition on product by other companies, we do believe that the competition will create a fair trade market and also ensure on our successful business. However, we strongly believe that our creativity and innovation combining with the local people distribution to preserve their culture and handicraft will produce more attractive and sellable products.

The climate change is a serious matter in any parts of the world. Climate change can affect the natural ecological system, people’s health and lives. Then, we must concern how to

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sustain the environment and raw material we utilise by maximising all resources but not mismanagement. We still need to maintain life-supporting ecosystems and to ensure that current activities allow for regeneration and restoration of resources. As phase I of our project will get the raw materials, cotton, cocoon and lotus from farmers then we do believe that it will be indirectly affected to the local people to preserve their own land and improve the environment in the sense of ownership because it could generate the income for them. In long terms, we also think of Phase II of our project to expand the project by creating our own raw materials in order to sustain our project in the community and not dependent on other sources of raw material.

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POSTSCIPT

6.1 What we learned from IATSS forum project

It shows the program of the IATSS forum. We studied these seminars in fifty-seven (57) days.

The main part is “Theme Study”. We had some lectures, field studies and group study which focused on the “Sustainable Community Design”. In addition to that, we had General Seminars and Field Study which also focuses on about Sustainable Community Design. In these lesson, we learned not only the general knowledge but also some hands-on experiences by visiting the actual places. Of course, all of these lessons were important, we learned a lot of things from that, but in this report, I will explain three (3) lessons which sophisticated our project which we explained above. These are “Japanese Culture”, “Regulus Field Study”, “Toba / Moku Moku Farm Field Study”.

Regarding “Japanese culture”, we visited the machiya, go-on project, and saw the example of modernization of the traditional products. We learned how to preserve and pass to next generation of traditional culture. From this lesson, we realized that modernizing the traditional assets is the way to attracts consumers and revitalizes its industry.

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Regarding “Regulus Field Study”, we visited the company called Regulus, which hire disability people and also its CEO is disability people. In this lesson, we learned the importance of involvement of the local peoples include disability people. And also, we realized that working with disability people is possible if we find their strong point and prepare appropriate environment (this mean barrier free building) and tools.

Regarding “Toba / Moku Moku Farm Field Study”, we visited the AMA café, shimakko guide, Moku Moku Farm and experienced some hands-on workshop which performed by the local people. In this lesson, we learned the importance of involvement of the local peoples in order to earn money by themselves, and adding the story of its product is effective to attract customers.

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The followings show the summary of what we learned. It is based on the three pillars of the Sustainable Community Design.

Environment

 It is important to understand the idea of “SpaceShip Earth”, it means that the natural resources are limited. We should use renewable resources in order to preserve them not only nowadays but also future generation. Social

 Social should be handled by the local people themselves, the involvement of local people including VP, younger age is important for sustainable community. Economic

 We have to earn money to survive, in order to become self-reliant, modernization is key factor to make innovation continuously and revitalize industry.

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Our own definition of Sustainable Community Design

“Sustainable Community Design is a people oriented approach by linking the community resources to create life-long sufficient economy.”

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