CAPTsmile 2019

Article written by Lim Yu Ting Zephanie and Randy Ng Guo Rong

CAPTsmile is started by CAPT Social Innovation Wing in 2018. This overseas trip has continued into its second iteration in 2019. With the Impactful Community Development framework as a guide, CAPTsmile prioritized a ground-up approach to change that begins with understanding community’s needs and assets. Following which, we aimed to introduce sustainable solutions that partners and empowers the community in the process. This year, we worked with Solutions To End Poverty (STEP) and the community in Smile Village (Phnom Penh, Cambodia) to improve their social enterprise unit.

Our preparations began with a recce trip in January 2019, where the recce team built rapport with the villagers and the local NGO. Through personal interactions with the community and an asset and community mapping process, our team derived our project scope. Subsequently, the team of 18 CAPTains held weekly meetings in preparation for the actual trip in May. We kept in close contact with the local NGO team during the preparation process to gather feedback on our ideas.

Our key initiative targeted the sewing and rug-making ladies in the social enterprise unit. We facilitated the first collaboration of an Australian entrepreneur with Smile Village, who begun making monthly orders for tote bags made by the sewing ladies, providing them with a steady income. On top of that, we catalogued the products made by the sewing ladies to promote more future orders and also set up a workflow and pricing system to enable a smooth sales process. For the rug-making ladies, we capitalise on their existing handicraft knot-tying skills and taught them how to make two new macramé products – earrings and coasters. We chose these products as they were easy to learn, hence, providing the opportunity to also share about the importance of quality and time management in production. These products are also be popular with the overseas market, making it viable for more collaboration opportunities with other entrepreneurs. Aside from working with the social enterprise unit, the team also engaged with the children and youths, through craft and English lessons. These interactions allowed us to build friendships and understand the Cambodian culture better, in turn, we also got to share more about our life in Singapore.