10 years of Doing GOOD

10 years of Doing GOOD

March 16, 2022

We are turning 10! We can’t believe it’s already been 10 amazing years since we started our mission to support the growth of Asean social enterprises. Although we started as a conventional grant-giving organisation, our journey has taken us to unexpected places. We didn’t expect that we would be climbing hill slopes with hilltribe farmers to harvest coffee beans or testing bamboo bicycles in the Vietnamese countryside. We certainly didn’t expect to be able to fund 28 very different social enterprises from seven countries around the region, supporting tens of thousands of lives through grassroots innovations

One of the memorable workshops we funded took place in a small West Sumatran village where traditional songket brocade weavers were retrained to switch to environmentally-friendly natural dyes

 

Yet, the more we saw, the more we felt there was to do. It was a dream back then to run our own shop featuring beautiful products with even more beautiful stories behind them. In taking stock of the last 10 years now, we are thankful that we had the opportunity to do this since 2017. Not only have we been able to support some communities through our grants, Destination GOOD enabled us to deepen our impact by helping them reach new markets and to work with even more communities simply by selling their creations.

  

 Destination GOOD had its humble beginning at this pop-up store at the international departure terminal of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (klia2).

  

It has not always been plain sailing. The last two years have been especially tough not only on us but on all the social enterprise partners that we have gotten to know over the years. The pandemic left us with no choice but to temporarily stop our grant programme. Funding from our parent company had to be suspended and our regional work was put to a stop by border closures. Sales at our newly opened Destination GOOD shop at REXKL in Kuala Lumpur plummeted as visitors dried up and we were forced to shutter for months at a time. In the end, we had no choice but to close our REXKL outlet for good last November and move our operations online.

 

Pandemic lockdowns inspired us to try a different way of storytelling.

 

However, as we enter our 10th year, we can look forward to renewal. The time and efforts invested in our online store has slowly borne fruit. Today, we claim a customer base as far away as Japan, Australia, Germany and the United States. Even more exciting, we are returning to our pop-up roots with an upcoming outing at Publika, Kuala Lumpur, from March 21-27. For those who have missed us, come catch us and pick up some of the last units of beautiful craft from communities in Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia that are much harder to reach in this post-Covid era. It’s also a great opportunity to snag some of our new stock - such as the limited edition tiffins and lunch boxes from Johor’s JEIWA social enterprise hand-painted by strong women and mothers 💪🏽 👩‍👧‍👦  who survived abuse. 

We are counting the days till April 1 when borders reopen and we can resume what we do best. More pop-up locations will be announced soon as we start our hunt for a new home for Destination GOOD. To all those who have supported us, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We are grateful for the experience and we look forward to bringing you more stories, products and dreams from the far corners of Asean. In the meantime, see you at Publika!