Louise Emmanuelle Mabulo is a 22-year-old chef, farmer, and entrepreneur. She is the Founder of The Cacao Project, which cultivates resilient and Climate-smart livelihoods, positioning farmers for sustainable success in San Fernando, Camarines Sur, Philippines.

Louise is a National Geographic Young Explorer, a featured honouree for Forbes Asia’s list ‘30 Under 30’, a Young Champion of the Earth under United Nations Environment Programme, an honouree of Tatler’s ‘Generation T’, and was awarded Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year in 2018. She is a recipient of the Friend Of Humanity Award under Friendship Ambassadors Foundation New York, Social Entrepreneur award from the University of Connecticut, Champion for Sustainability Award from the Economic Times India, and on Straits Times ’30 Under 30 to watch for’ Asia list.

Louise has also hosted pop-up dinners that source local ingredients and highlight locally produced components of her menus. She was the host to the cooking show ‘Simply Sarap’, aimed at promoting cultural diplomacy under the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines. Mabulo strives toward empowering farmers and advancing climate action & environmental stewardship through her work.

Satyajeet Tambe is an educationalist, an entrepreneur, and a young Politician from Maharashtra, India. He attended Pune University and John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. 

Ara is the founder of the Aha! Project (www.ahaproject.id | @aha.projectid ). It is a social initiative that provides quality and fun learning tools for young students at home. Within less than 12 months since its inception, her initiative has already impacted ~2,400 children across 13 provinces and 35 villages in Indonesia. 

"We need every one of us to take action and solve the problems we face around us, instead of waiting for a hero and demanding the change from other people we all must reflect and understand what can we do to make the world a better place".

Background: 

Ara is a serial social entrepreneur and she began her social entrepreneurial journey at 10 years of age with the Moo's project 🐄. Ara was quickly recognized as a Changemaker of the future, and she became an Ashoka Youth Venturer at the age of 11. 

Growing up, Ara experienced a range of schooling systems. In her elementary years, she was home-schooled, then she went to a local school, followed by a stint as an international undergraduate student living in a new country. Following her studies in marketing and management in Singapore, she returned to Indonesia and at the age of 21, and started a travel-learning project URTravelearner to help others envision changemaker lives by seeing social entrepreneurs in action. 

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic stuck, she launched Aha! Project, a scheme to improve the access of study resources for children during the pandemic.

A Changemaker in every sense, in this podcast episode Ara shares her journey of correcting the problems she sees in the world, keeping her eyes open to new ways of making an impact and paying it forward. 

Recommendations: 

Book: Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Get in touch with Ara:

• Ara's Instagram and LinkedIn
• Aha! Project website, and Instagram