who we are and our vision
For those of you who don’t know us yet, we are Mango Tree EcoHostel, located in Negros Island, in the Philippines. The faces behind this project are Julia, Lhouwie, Pilar and Toni.
We are a group of like-minded dedicated young individuals. For us, nature is an essential part of our life and we want to protect it. Most of the people love to travel, to see beautiful places, meet new people, try new food, and experience different cultures that they have not seen yet. That’s why we started Mango Tree EcoHostel: our main aim is to protect our environment and show the world the local Philipino communities around us.
Our vision is to build a place where travellers and locals can meet and learn from each other; a place we can call home, a hostel that is not only a place for sleeping and resting but a centre of cultural exchange that focuses on environmental awareness and protection.
our trajectory so far
At the end of 2019, all our team met again in the Philippines with the goal of making this vision possible. At that time, we only had this dream in our hearts and each other’s backs. We were innocent and inexperienced in a foreign tropical island, we had nothing – not even a place where we could build our ECOHOSTEL! But during this year, many things happened and we have come so far!
We can proudly count on these important achievements:
- We have organized learning sessions in two different local schools on the island, raising awareness about the importance of reducing the consumption of plastic, proper waste management, and recycling.
- We have shown to more than 1000 people (friends, neighbours, workawayers, school students, etc) how to make eco-bricks for building and upcycling purposes.
- We have recycled by building with eco-bricks for our hostel around 1000 kilograms of soft plastic: it means around 1500 eco-bricks! We built our toilet walls out of eco-bricks and clay. We have loads of upcycled plastic as well to produce pillows, chairs, tables, curtains and more.
- We have organized and participated in several beach, land and ocean clean-ups with locals and backpackers. In this way, we have been continuing our fight against trash undersea.
- Before the pandemic, we were carrying out a workaway program where volunteers from all over the world could come to help us with our initiatives. We were able to create a cultural exchange between our workawayers and our local friends. It became a little community: we lived, cooked, and celebrated together- and we made our first steps at the construction site – which was really hard work!
- We have already built 90% of the buildings to complete the hostel. We were able to hire an average of 10 local bamboo construction workers for around 10 months. This way, we are preserving the knowledge of traditional construction with bamboo. Knowledge that was being forgotten in the area due to the cement industry becoming the main type of construction in the last decades.
- A German camera team from BluePrintMedia Production visited us in the Philippines to record our exciting journey for a documentary.
Finally, we have been able to open our place, first with a Cafe and Restaurant, following with the possibility of accommodation in our jungle huts coming up during this month. We are so excited about all the new opportunities and projects that this opening can bring to us 😀
Do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in working with us in any possible way.
meet our team
Dive Instructor, Germany
Sustainability Management, Germany
Architect, Spain
Hospitality Management, Philippines