Our Impact
Our Impact By Numbers in 2023
$71,500
Total Funding Directed to Community Partners
Directed to Campaign for Public Policy on Mineral Resources
Directed to Khon Ruk Barn Kerd
Directed to RadGram’s Organizing Fund
$50,000
$15,000
$6,000
Our Pillars of Impact
Healthy Eco-Systems
Thriving Community-based Economy
Strong Community Movements
Healing Community Relations
Organizing Fund
The Radical Grandma Collective Organizing Fund aims to provide community-based environmental justice organizations in Thailand with funding (on average 40,000 baht or $1,125 USD) to support current needs related to community organizing and mobilization. The goal is to provide one-time, direct, monetary support to community projects organizing efforts to increase their ability to host events and amplify their work. Ultimately, the Organizing Fund provides front-line organizers with swift, timely support without the need for a long and formal fundraising process. In 2023, we funded 5 community projects totaling $6,000 USD.
This year, the “Weaving to Fight the Mines” initiative became even more special with the planning of a weaving school to teach the village youth about these local practices. The school will focus on planting organic local cotton varieties, revitalizing the processes of spinning cotton, dyeing fabric, designing patterns, and weaving. These efforts were aimed at passing on to all fabric users the shared mission of restoring the mountains and the lives of the community members through cotton threads.
Weavers and farmers began restoring over six varieties of local cotton to spin into thread, dyeing them with natural colors from the bark and leaves of trees carefully collected from the mountains. Yarn is woven into products by the Radical Grandmas of the mountains in Loei, to tell the story of the weavers and their community members who try to weave the mountains into their work.
Weaving School
Opening of the School
Growing Organic Cotton
Educational Programs
Radical Grandma Collective, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Lowell ("UML"), offered a study abroad program focused on social and environmental restoration in Northeast Thailand. Students learned about the impacts of extractive (mining) industries on communities, conducted community-based research, and studied community-driven restoration processes. They were immersed in Thai culture through homestays, language and cultural lessons, and interactions with local leaders and families.
Social enterprise is a core part of Radical Grandma Collective’s roots. We started out selling woven goods from Loei, Thailand to markets in the U.S. in order to create an income stream for the grandmas. While we continue to strengthen our support for the weaving collective, we have expanded support across new services, products, and partner communities across Northeast Thailand.
Our social enterprise directly supports the community financially, contributing to the goals of environmental and economic restoration. In addition to providing income to individual weavers, as members of the weaving collective 50THB from each item is donated to Khon Rak Ban Kerd, the community organization that supports the anti-mining and holistic restoration efforts.
Social Enterprise
Modeling Handmade Scraves
Mae Rot Weaving