KL Marketplace Missions with Cornerstone Couriers in 2019
Over Singapore’s National Day long weekend, a team of Cornerstone Couriers traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for a 5-day immersion into the social entrepreneurship scene in Malaysia.
The purpose of the trip is for the team to (1) learn from and serve together with a spectrum of different social enterprises, (2) use their own marketplace experiences to value-add to the social enterprises we met, (3) be learn in depth about a variety of social issues seen in Malaysia that are unlike those experienced in Singapore (in this case, the refugee situation).
the full team at 7tea1 
the full team at El Shaddai Refugee Learning Centre
We’ve visited several organisations, but focused on 2 organisations in particular for in depth engagement. Half of the team went to 7Tea1 – a social enterprise that empowers youth with special needs with employment opportunities. We worked closely with Mr Lai, the founder of 7Tea1. He hopes to provide a safe space for the youth and their mothers to rest and play, as well as for them to make side income from processing and packing local teas.
Over the 2 days together, the Cornerstone team conducted (1) a business brainstorming session led by Adelene, and came up with potential new business expansion ideas such as new tea flavours and new marketing strategies, (2) conducted an art workshop for the youth (which was observed by the 2 psychologists mentioned below).
The mothers, youth, and Mr Lai were not merely recipients during our time with them, in fact, Mr Lai organised 2 workshops by professionals for us — first, a session with psychologists who work with adults with learning disabilities and autism. The training on autism awareness was extremely useful and insightful for our team’s understanding of how to work with them, and was also very useful for the mothers of the youth with autism to understand the reason behind some of the behaviours displayed by their children. And secondly, an introduction to the social enterprise scene by the British Council.
The other half of the team spent time with the social business arm of El Shaddai – House of Bread, a bakery with a mission to empower refugees and undocumented individuals with good baking skills to get them employed.
Through the dialogues and interaction with Jen and Dr O, key persons in charge of the social enterprise arm of El Shaddai, Dennis L. (from Cornerstone) in particular gave useful business insights and ideas that helped to re-shape the business model of House of Bread. As it is difficult to recruit trainees for the baking school due to the refugees legitimate need to receive monetary incentive in order to survive in Klang, Dennis suggested conducting baking lessons for the public (think airbnb experiences) which can generate revenue for the business, and cover the cost of training refugees who are interested to learn. This can then help to meet both the business KPI as well as the social KPI!
The team also helped to model with the bread for the baking workshops, and took photos of the bread for the e-catalog which will be prepared by Dennis O. from Cornerstone.
House of Bread trainee at work 
Serene modeling for the catalog!
Other highlights of the trip:
An intimate and personal sharing by Sasibai, founder of Earth Heir in their studio. The team learnt a lot about how a sustainable social enterprise can look like, and the sacrifices put in to get to where Earth Heir is today.
With Sasibai (standing, in red) and Xiao Cheng (seated, 3rd from right) from Earth Heir 
Earth Heir’s vision to build nations & generations to live as heirs of the Earth 🙂
As it was the 20th anniversary celebration of Dignity for Children Foundation, there were many workshops available for the public to attend! The team split up into the workshops that they were interested in, and learnt about the mission and work of Dignity for Children through the process.
E-lluminate/MSO is an informal education centre for Myanmar refugees (largely from Chin state) students who aren’t able to attend normal public school due to their identity status. They conduct board game sessions for outsiders to interact with and practice conversational English with the students at MSO.
We had the honour of having Dr Kelvin Tan from National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore to conduct a public speaking workshop for the students there. It was such a good session seeing the students trying their best to speak with the tips taught by Dr Kelvin 🙂 Actxplorer would love to see how we can continue to support the work of MSO/E-lluminate in the future!
Picha Open House was a great experience for the team to hear the story from a Syrian lady, to understand the refugee crisis from multiple perspectives, and to eat home cooked Syrian cuisine in her beautiful home.
Last but not least, we went on a KL walking tour with Shyam, the founder of Yellowhouse (an NGO that cares for the homeless community in KL), and Unseen Tours (the social enterprise arm of Yellowhouse that trains the homeless to become guides of the city). The sun was shining hard down on us, but (most of) the team persevered on and completed the walk with a new understanding of the predicament of homeless people in KL.
Follow ups:
Right now, the El Shaddai team is preparing the bread catalog for House of Bread, and a first cut brochure for the baking workshop. The 7Tea1 team is doing up a new publicity video, and marketing materials.
Both teams are in whatsapp group chats with the key persons in both social businesses and will hopefully* provide support e.g. business advisory and ideas when needed!
Some testimonials from the KL team
” Visiting the learning centre by E-lluminate and interacting with the students for that short hour. Despite the brief time we spent there, I felt this was the most in-depth connection we had with actual refugees throughout the trip. The fact that we could impart a simple teaching to them (i.e. public speaking) was a real bonus. ” when asked what was the highlight of the trip for them
” This trip has met my expectations! I’m not sure if the trip was planned as such but the particular variety of social enterprises selected contained such a breadth and depth that no one social enterprise was exactly the same as the other. This was important because the aim of social enterprise is to benefit the needy and yet be sustainable, yet this trip also showed a perspective when race and religion are also thrown into the mix. ” when asked if this trip met their expectations
” Yes, I was exposed to different social causes (mainly refugees) and sustainable models and challenges, which could better help me implement social work in future ” when asked if this trip met their expectations
” The power of ministering to and serving refugees is the collaboration of various bodies of Christ coming together and the selfless collaboration of kingdom workers regardless of diverse backgrounds converging to serve our King and love His people :)” when asked if the trip changed their impression/perspective of any people groups
“Before this I did not even know that there were refugee groups in Malaysia” when asked if the trip changed their impression/perspective of any people groups
Quick throwback to Yangon Cornerstone Couriers 2018…
Last year December, a team of 20 Cornerstone Couriers went on a social enterprise marketplace missions trip to Yangon. We did many things, but the highlight was the publicity video done up by Adelene for YWAM Super Solar Social Enterprise that produces clean stoves for rural and squatter settlement communities, and employs individuals with physical disabilities and low-income individuals to produce them.
The video has helped Super Solar founder, Saw Peter, to generate greater interest among NGOs and philanthropists to purchase and sponsor these clean stoves for communities that need them.
You can watch the video by clicking here!
