After spending the last week with our amazing Thailand team, we knew one thing to be true – they have some really great ideas. Lots of them. Ideas for how to make the people they serve feel more joyful and powerful. Ideas for how to improve their own work. Ideas to make the world just a little better place to be. So on our last day in Thailand (for now!) we’re making sure that our Thailand team – our oldest ARC program – has their experience and their brilliant ideas captured. And we chose to do that over a family meal – breaking bread as we shared stories, swapped ideas, and celebrated a week of great work together. Many on the team have been with us for years, sometimes over a decade. They’ve seen a lot, both wonderful and sad, meaningful and challenging. Over the years, they’ve gained invaluable insights into the communities they work in - and often live in. So as we ate, laughed, and spent time over dinner, we also wrote down as many ideas as we could think of that … [Read more...] about A Bright Idea

The refugees living at Umpiem Mai camp have a challenge ahead. Very soon, they need to leave the home they’ve known as refugees for the past few decades and return to Myanmar, where they'll begin again. This will be a tough transition – even successful businesspeople at the camp will need to start from scratch. What they need now is all the support they can get to make that transition just a little easier. The HAUS Salon team visiting from Minneapolis plays a very important role in all this – for refugees who own their own hair salons at Umpiem Mai, having a stronger skill set will make them all the more likely to succeed once they go back home. The HAUS team and their students worked really hard over the past few days to teach these folks the tools of the trade. And now, it’s time to give the stylists official recognition of their efforts, something that they can hang proudly in their salons. And something they can use to boost their business. Certificates! Charlie, … [Read more...] about The Road Ahead

Thanks to the HAUS Salon team all the way from Minneapolis, the hair stylists at Umpiem Mai have the right tools and some new ideas for their growing business – now it’s time to focus on the haircutting itself! On Day 169, Charlie, Lindsey, Sarah, Natalie, and Mary did a deep dive into all things stylings. From hair coloring, to cutting, to men’s haircuts and women’s, the eager students soaked it all in. Lindsey and Sarah took charge of teaching hair coloring to the group. Unsurprisingly, the language barrier proved to be a bit of a challenge when going through the different color techniques, so they got creative. They lined the students up from the darkest hair shade to the lightest hair shade to illustrate levels 1 through 10 in the hair color theory workshop. And it worked! Everyone loved it. Natalie and Sarah led the men’s haircutting class. They got the chance to talk to many stylists who wanted to focus on barbershops – one student was opening a barbershop called … [Read more...] about A New ‘Do

When planning their trip to Umpiem Mai, our friends at HAUS Salon set out to help hairstylists at the refugee camp build a thriving business. Part of that means getting the tools they need to do the job right. But another big piece of the puzzle is focusing on the business itself – how to attract more clients, and keep them. Mary, HAUS Salon’s General Manager, is no stranger to good business – it’s what she does. So she had some ideas up her sleeve for how to help these budding entrepreneurs take their businesses to the next level. First, Mary taught the students the importance of using business cards – they can help clients find their salons and they can use them to ask for referrals. Using the HAUS Salon business card as an example, students sketched out how their business cards might look. She also taught the eager listeners the basics of salon management – things like inventory and bookkeeping. Next up? Social media, of course! The team taught the stylists the … [Read more...] about Business for Good

Our friends at HAUS Salon in Minneapolis are really remarkable people. With the skills and resources that they have at their disposal, they’re sharing their own unique gifts many times over – and inspiring others in the process. Last year, co-founder of HAUS Salon Charlie Brackney Love led a volunteer team of five HAUS stylists to Thailand, where they helped to train hairstylists in the Nu Po refugee camp in business skills and new haircutting techniques. They spent four days in Nu Po, and the experience was life-changing – for the HAUS team, and for the newly-trained refugees they equipped with new and powerful skills. And now, they’re back! This time in Umpiem Mai. These guys are really Changemakres 365 all-stars - they embody the true spirit of doing the doable. So naturally, they jumped right in. The first thing every aspiring hairstylist needs? The tools to get the job done! And the HAUS team had these budding entrepreneurs covered. The team brought with them … [Read more...] about Old Friends, a New Chapter

At the end of eight days of making change in Umpiem Mai, we were sweating! With temperatures well past 90 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity to boot, we quickly realized that it can be tough to stay focused when feeling so uncomfortable. And just about every person we chatted with at the health center team felt the same way. “What we could really use,” they said, “is a fan.” Why not make this work place just a little bit nicer for these folks who are putting in so many hours, day and night, to do their best for their patients? We rounded up as many fans as we could and gave them to the lab team, the in-patient department, the doctors for their offices, the director of the medical center, and the counseling rooms….phew! We reached everyone that we could. On top of helping them to stay cool, calm, and collected, the fans will also have an unexpected benefit – in the lab, they’ll help the team dry their testing slides, particularly important during the rainy season. … [Read more...] about Cool, Calm, and Collected

At Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp, there are so many people who work incredibly hard to make better lives for themselves, and for the refugees who call the camp home. But there’s a team of women who are at the heart of all this, who welcome new life and bring comfort to new mothers and their families – our team of midwives. These five women take care of families, help them plan and prepare for their new babies, see them through the delivery, and make sure the baby is getting the care they need after. They have a big job. But one thing they shouldn’t have to worry about? Laundry. “We don’t have anywhere to hang the sheets, towels, clothes - everything after we wash them,” said Snowdrop, one of the midwives. “Sometimes we even have to hang them on bamboo trees. And this is harmful to the baby because sometimes leaves, insects, and dirt get on them.” We knew we could do even one small thing to help these heroic women - on Day 165, we’re making a space to dry their laundry. We put … [Read more...] about Help for Heroes

At the health center at Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp, there’s a space dedicated to counseling – for people who have experienced traumas, and for people dealing with serious mental illnesses. When parents come to the center, they often bring their kids. But, there’s nowhere for the kids to go, nothing for them to do, during the session. Ameang, the counselor in charge of services, wanted to make a change. She told us that she could really use some toys for the kids, something that they might play with so that their parents can speak more freely. “It would also be great for the kids who come with mental illnesses,” she said. It would be a pathway for them to engage. So for Day 164, we decided there was something we could do. We bought books, blocks, puzzles, and games for the kids. And then we set to creating a kid-friendly space in the counseling center, a place where all kids can feel comfortable – and have some fun! “This will be really supportive for all the children who … [Read more...] about Where Kids Can Play

The health center team at Umpiem Mai work really hard with limited resources – but always with an eye on how they can do things better. So when we asked the team what other changes we could make inside the health center itself, one problem came up right away. “With how narrow the doors to the bathrooms are,” said Wai Htoo, the Director of the Health Center and resident of Umpiem Mai. “Patients with a wheelchair can’t get in.” On top of that, the existing toilets hadn’t been replaced in over ten years. It was time for a change. So the team got to work knocking down the bathroom walls, and purchased new metal doors. Then, they added a coat of paint. Being wheelchair accessible – as well as having an updated, clean space for all patients to use – is incredibly important. It allows even the most vulnerable, sick, and weary patients some dignity, some privacy. “I’m happy to have a change like this,” said Wai. “Because our hospital is treating not only the disease, but the … [Read more...] about Access for All

In the hustle and bustle of daily life at the Umpiem Mai health center, life can get stressful. But Dr. Kyaw has a solution – yoga. He’s a big believer in the power of yoga to heal, to bring people together. He’s seen it firsthand. “In my experience, doing yoga as a team helps people come together,” he said. “It helps everyone relax.” Dr. Kyaw is in charge of the ARC team at the health center, a team that is comprised of camp residents – refugees themselves. And he wanted to bring the power of yoga to his staff, to help them de-stress in the face of the often difficult situations they find themselves in, both at the health center and in the camp. Yoga is free – that’s part of the beauty of it. But, in order to do it right, Dr. Kyaw needed just a few things to get his idea off the ground. We gathered yoga mats, some yoga-appropriate pants, and a speaker to play calming music during class. Dr. Kyaw really emphasized the importance of having yoga pants available – … [Read more...] about Staying Centered