Our Story

Sonas is focused on rebuilding a new village economy that connects craftspeople, brands, influencers, and consumers through a transparent value chain powered by inventive thinking and technology, one village at a time.

Our Mission

Our purpose is to develop intentional communities that are consciously designed through locally owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability ( economic, social, cultural and ecology) to regenerate social and natural environments.

How It Started

After researching about many failed development initiatives and their negative impact on Cambodia, Sonas founders, inspired by the Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Yunus, saw an opportunity to develop an innovative and self-perpetuating model with a potential to have a large-scale impact. With the help of one local family, they started the initiative in 2013.

Our Belief

We believe that the large, complex, and interconnected structure of the consumer products value chain actually provides multiple avenues for innovation, and no single organization will be able to find all the answers and skills in-house.

Instead, collaboration among diverse stakeholders is the best way to anticipate
and develop disruptive models and ways of working to achieve large-scale
change.

An innovative self-driving model

The 4 Pillars of Community Sustainability Achievement

We believe that social entrepreneurship can empower people.

Investing in people, sharing our knowledge through mentorship and training and providing interest free seed capital can help establish sustainable micro businesses. It can empower people and create a big impact on the individuals who want to take responsibility for their future, alleviate poverty and improve the life of their family and community. Aside from training, we also want to inspire others by sharing their stories of determination to achieve an empowered life. We believe by doing this, we can help spread happiness and inspire others to do the same. After all, happier people help build a happier communities.

We immerse ourselves in the lives of communities to identify aspiring entrepreneurs and support them with training, funding and other resources that allow them to connect with the market for the goods they produce. The successful entrepreneurs then become the catalyst of change by inspiring other community members, this creates the intended multiplier effect.

THE MODEL VILLAGE

Our vision is to develop the village (Prey Theat, Takeo) to become a role model of a
self sustainable community known as an intentional community that is consciously designed through locally owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability ( economic, social, cultural and ecology) to regenerate social and natural environments.

” Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and make value added products, you enable the entire village to feed themselves for life ”

Takeo, Cambodia

Long Term Goal

Our longer term goal is to have this model to be adopted by 10 more villages across Cambodia. We will achieve this by actively sharing the success stories and knowledge of our entrepreneurs with other local change leaders from other villages in Cambodia. We will collaborate with forward thinking ethical businesses to expand the market reach to ensure long term sustainability.

How You Can Help

Become a Changemaker by supporting our initiatives.

Step 1

We identify an aspiring entrepreneur and find out what their true passion is.

Step 2

Sonas team supports the entrepreneur on the ground by providing education, training, and access to the market (one of the biggest missing link in Cambodia) to help ensure their business is sustainable.

Step 3

We share their journey of progress with the other like people who want to follow their footsteps.

Step 4

They then mentor at least one more person to create a multiplier effect and help us scale the impact.

To talk about the future is useful only if it leads to action now.