12th anniversary & charity: water

While Madagascar’s rich biodiversity draws environmental and conservation attention, the people who live there are often overlooked. Madagascar ranks 173 out of 191 ranked countries on the 2022 Human Development Index. Basic access to clean drinking water sits at just 53% throughout the country and drops to 36% in rural areas. Sanitation and hygiene access is similarly limited. Regular floods, droughts, earthquakes, and cyclones exacerbate basic health and safety concerns.

charity: water began working with with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Madagascar in 2019 to provide clean water access where needed. CRS Madagascar uses a public-private partnership approach that engages the local government and a private water service provider. Once a water system is built, the private service provider will operate and repair the system for 10-15 years. People pay a small fee for water, which goes toward service operations, maintenance, repairs, and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) programming.

This year, to commemorate Nylon’s 12th birthday, we will be raising funds to build a piped system for a community in Madagascar to access clean safe water. This piped system is planned to serve approximately 90 people and Nylon has committed to donate US$9000 for this water project. We are inspired by the stories of how a simple water tap can change peoples’ lives including 2 of our favourite ones which we shared below that really touched us.

Meet Honorine - Honorine used to wake up at 3 am to collect dirty water. But now, with access to clean and safe water, she’s been able to devote her time to much more important things—like running her own restaurant!

Every Father's Dream - Clean water brings a father in Madagascar more time with his daughters.

We hope to see you down at Everton Park to support us on this project. All coffee sales go towards the our fundraiser - the more you drink, the more we can raise! See you on 1 May!

Amazing 7

This year, we decided to continue to work with charity: water as we believe there needs to be more work done all over the world where the lack of clean water results in continued poverty, inequality, diseases and death. In Singapore, we are blessed with the infrastructure to have ready access to clean water. To do our part, we celebrated Nylon’s 7th birthday with a specially-planned community market, and bringing in 7 old and new neighbours of Everton Park and friends to join in the charity fund raising event for charity: water. These included the legendary Ji Xiang Confectionery, hidden soya bean gem - Beano, our popular next-door neighbour - At the Myo, the one & only barber shop in Everton Park - Mister Moustache, as well as our new flowery neighbour - Blossoms by Rei. Our baker friends from J Cakes and Room for Desserts never fail to deliver, and provided a huge array of delicious bakes, making the event a resounding success.

It was extra meaningful for us to commemorate this special day with the community that we so love. It was great to see the owners of the businesses to take time out to pitch in with the sales and dropping by to soak in the party atmosphere. Over the 7 years, Everton Park has gone through a mini gentrification but thankfully, we feel its charm has not been lost as new and old businesses continue to co-exist in harmony. 

With the community effort, we managed to raise a total of S$7,491.65 on 1st May. Here is the detailed breakdown contributions from all those who participated.

At the Myo : S$200
Beano : S$124
Blossoms by Rei: S$214
Ji Xiang Confectionery: S$280
J Cakes & Room for Dessert: S$1768 
Mister Moustache: S$304
Nylon: S$2998
General donations: S$1603.65

We’re stoked by the results and truly touched by the generosity of those who came by and contributed. 100% of this amount will be used to fund water projects. Your donation will change lives simply by providing access to clean water. A heartfelt thank you from us. We’ll continue to make delicious coffees to express our gratitude.

Thank you for your support!

We finally managed to get around the banking hoops to have our donations over to charity: water for a grand total of S$9,875.58 (US$7,128.33) collected on our 5th anniversary and throughout the month of May in our shop. We brewed a record number of coffees on our anniversary for those who dropped by on this special day. While celebrating Nylon's birthday, we were also eager to raise awareness to the lack of clean water in many parts around the world. This meaningful event gave us an avenue for us to thank you for supporting us throughout our 5 years of coffee journey together. It is a massive milestone for us and we are grateful to have our beloved Nylon community growing along with us in this journey.

Again, the entire team at Nylon would to say a big THANK YOU and we hope to continue to roast and serve you delicious coffees for more years to come.