SEEDLINGS OF HOPE
About
“Seedlings of Hope” is a program to help feed the urban poor.
Seedlings are donated, to urban community gardens, where the urban poor as well as NGOs “farm” on behalf of their beneficiaries, the homeless, orphans, as well as refugees. “Seedlings of Hope” is committed to Zero Food Waste and Zero Hunger pursuant to the UN Sustainability Goals –since the underprivilege consume all the harvest arising from the seedlings donated.
We are committed to donating over 2000 seedlings each year, comprising, tomatoes, bitter gourds, chillies (large and chili padi), okras, leafy vegetables, carrots, corn etc to urban community gardens and seek to expand our network of urban community gardens.
The community gardens we work with donate harvests to the B40 community, soup kitchens and orphanages.
Social Impact Matching Grant – SIM Grant
Early 2021, Abundant Ventures Sdn Bhd was certified as a social enterprise and secured its SE Basic status under the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI)*. Subsequently, Abundant Ventures Sdn Bhd, secured a SIM Grant under MaGIC to expand its “Seedlings of Hope” program. As part of its pitch, it involved the setting up of a commercially operated chilli farm, at 3122 Urban Farm, located just 3km from the iconic Petronas Twin Towers. The chilli farm is now in operation. Chilli was the chosen crop, since Malaysia has a 30.8% self-sufficiency ratio for chilli with almost 70% imported from our neighbouring countries. In 2019, amongst vegetables, chilli recorded the highest import dependency ratio with 73.6%.
*Ministry of Entrepreneurs Development (MED) undertakes such certification now
2022
The Seedlings of Hope program continues to run with expansion into germination as well. Seedlings have continued to be donated to to places such as Kebun Kebun Bangsar, Kebun Komuniti AU2 and other communities.
Seedlings of Hope now includes the support we give to Smallholder Farmers when they germinate seeds.