[Project Completed]
Our belief is that business should be a force for good. More than a Dent is the charitable arm of Edwin and Magda’s journey, established with the belief that lasting change can come from meaningful, community-led projects. More than a Dent’s second project, based in Southern Nepal, is a Recycling Centre designed to eliminate child labour, create long-term sustainable income opportunities for families, and ensure children have access to education.
What We Set Out to Do
Imagine impoverished children - often from the untouchable Dalit caste and some very young - labouring and heaving heavy bricks, surrounded by dust, chemicals and flames, just to put food on the table. Now imagine the difference if their parents could work in conditions that would enable them to support their families and their children could access education and other necessities. That’s the aim of the Recycling Centre.
Why It Mattered
This project aims to eliminate child labour in this region by creating a brand new Recycling Centre with the aim being job creation for the parents involved. This End Child Labour project means – no more work at brick factories for these children and enough income for the parents to be able to feed the children and send them to school.
A Sustainable Solution
The Recycling Centre in Southern Nepal is designed with sustainability at its core, ensuring both social and environmental benefits continue well beyond the initial set-up phase. The project will have long-term impact because it creates its own revenue streams, reinvests profits into education and community awareness, reduces dependency on aid, and is designed to be replicated across the region—ensuring long-lasting impact for families and children who previously had to work, and can now be educated.
How We Raised the Funds
We began our fundraising with Donation Days across our Artisan coffee shops, which proved a great success. Building on this momentum, we launched More Than a Walk—a half-marathon walk and run connecting our five shops. Both team members and customers joined in, helping to raise vital funds. To round off the campaign, we partnered with the Nepalese restaurant Annapurna (https://annapurnarestaurant.com/) to host More Than a Meal, a special fundraising evening in support of the project.
Our Delivery Partner: Our Sansar
Our Sansar is a UK-registered charity based, committed to supporting the most marginalised children in Nepal—particularly those for whom little or no other assistance exists. We came across them and their amazing work through a friend of our charity, who had volunteered in Nepal with Our Sansar over a decade ago, and connected us.
Seeing It First-Hand
We are yet to visit the project in Rautahat, in Southern Nepal and have every intention of doing so - until then, we’re in constant contact with Julia, the founder of the charity on the ground for regular updates and progress reports.
Final Thoughts
Our Sansar’s work spans many areas, however we chose to support their End to Child Labour project, and have been truly impressed by both the impact they are making on the ground and the accountability with which they operate. It’s clear they are a well-run, trustworthy charity doing vital, long-lasting work, and we are proud to partner with them.
