Sapa Sisters asks for Your help!

Once again Sapa Sisters is forced to reach out for financial support. From being a healthy and growing business in the beginning of 2020 our revenue has now dropped by 98%. It's a very difficult time right now.

We have stretched every Dong and Dollar as long as we could but now the generous funding we received from our last crowdfunding campaign, is gone.

We are sensitive to that many people all around the world are struggling right now. Hopefully we will soon have an effective vaccine that will be available for enough people to stop Covid 19. We just need to push through a little while longer!

With that in mind, we once again ask you, our friends and supporters, for more help; and while it doesn’t feel good to ask - we see no other way at the moment. We want to be transparent with what we did with the last funding we received and what future costs we have to cover.

This is what the last funding’s has covered and what we also expect to have to keep on paying during spring 2021:

• Taxes.
• Salary for essential staff: bookkeeper, booking staff, manager in Sapa. Total 3 people. (20% of their normal pay).
• Salary for receptionist in Sapa office (4h/day).
• Sapa Office rent (We have negotiated the rent down to 70% for 2020).
• Cost for Sapa Office, water/electricity/internet.
• Homestay rent, 1-year (May).
• Hanoi office (We have now closed our office in Hanoi but still pay for storage).
• Fixed costs for guides.
• Websites/ e-mail service/booking platform/Ads (We have now stopped our all ads).
• Hospital bills for guides and their children, including travels to Hanoi.
• Support money for guide who lost her child.
• Social insurance. (We have postponed the payment of social insurance during 2020 but it’s soon time to pay and it’s a big post, almost 9000USD).

On the plus side we still have at least a few treks every month! Our office stays open a few hours a day and we have staff answering emails and helps with online bookings. For a while now Vietnam has zero reported cases of Covid-19. People who travel into the country are quarantined 14 days but once you are in you can now move freely.

Sapa Sisters is also one out of only two companies in Sapa who has received government corona-support for our staff. Most of our guides were recently able to receive a one-time payment to their personal bank accounts. We are very happy that our application finally went through!

We are very grateful for all the help and every dollar we can get! Please help us by sharing our campaign throughout your social media, or book a trek with us in the future.

Thank you and stay safe!

For you who don't know about Sapa Sisters yet. Here follow a short presentation:

Sapa Sisters is an all-female run social enterprise that arrange private treks and tours in Sapa valley and up in the mountains surrounding it. All Sapa Sisters guides are from the minority group H'Mong.

The idea with Sapa Sisters was to give the guides more direct access to the costumers and create a sustainable living for the guides. We want travelers and guides to have an authentic experience and personal meetings, for that reason we have never offered group tours and we let the guide, herself, take command in how she think she best present and welcome the guests to our valley. This makes every trek unique.

Aside from offering a high salary (this should go without saying), we offer bonuses, social insurance, healthcare, paid parental leave, classes in First Aid and free loans (often forgiven).

Until recently we have succeeded, most of our guides are now owning their own land where they have built real houses with a standard that is much higher than the “normal” local houses. The guides have drivers’ licenses, own their own motorbikes. They have bank saving accounts where they save for the future. They travel on vacations and can afford to buy the things then need and want. Some have also started their own business with small homestays, lunch restaurants or small shops that their relatives and families run together with them. Sapa Sisters have 25 fully employed guides and about 15 that works extra. Sapa Sisters also have 8 office staff in Hanoi and Sapa and 2 people working in our breakfast restaurant.

All for a sustainable future for our employees and their families. Sapa Sisters also financed our own homestay Zao’s House and are partnering with one of our founding guides (Ly Thi Zao) to operate it - this is part of a long-term strategy to help those who started as guides transition to work outside of trekking.

Or at least this is how it used to be before the corona outbreak...