Emily's Mars Ambassador Program Blog

I had an incredible 2 weeks in Indonesia on the Mars Ambassador Program, where I joined a team of 5 other Associates from across Mars Inc to partner with Save The Children Indonesia. The purpose of our project was to understand more about the challenges and opportunities that Youth Cocoa Farmers are facing in Indonesia, to support creating a sustainable future for Cocoa.

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We started off in Jakarta learning more from the Save The Children team about all of the amazing work they are already doing in Indonesia, and learning about the complexities and challenges Cocoa Farming is facing. Following which we went to Makassar where Mars Associates helped us understand about the practicalities of our Cocoa Value Chain by introducing us to the Mars Makassar Cocoa Factory, the Mars Cocoa Academy, and the Mars Cocoa Research Center. We also ran a workshop which gave us the opportunity to hear directly from Youth Cocoa Farmers and Government representatives. Finally we returned to Jakarta to identify the opportunities we found for creating a more sustainable future for Youth Cocoa Farmers, and we created our proposal.

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It was a pleasure to partner with the Save The Children team who were all extremely kind, welcoming and knowledgeable. It was also really insightful to hear directly from the wide range of stakeholders involved in the Value Chain.

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It was a unique and eye-opening opportunity to experience the complexities of the start of the Cocoa Value Chain, and to see all of the investment that Save The Children and Mars are making into creating a sustainable future for cocoa. It is really rewarding that through the Mars Ambassador Program, our project team was able to help with a small piece of this complex challenge.