Vietnam is located in Southeast Asia and is one of the earliest agricultural centers practicing wet rice farming. With over 54 ethnic groups, one of which comprises 87% of the country’s population – the Viet or Kinh people, this S-shaped country has evolved into an economic powerhouse as the 33rd largest economy in the world with a prospective GDP in 2025 of $500 billion.
Although GDP per capita is growing, the country hosts extremely poor groups in the Central Highlands. Here, families suffer from food insecurity, poor access to healthcare and other issues.
To meet this challenge GlobalRise teamed with Coffee To Give, a unique program founded by a local businessman that distributes fortified milk to school children, funded by employees as they buy coffee at corporate offices – their spend goes into this special program. The processes within Coffee to Give’s program are remarkable, from coffee stands to logistics supplying remote schools to training local school officials.
Today the program provides fortified milk for 2,300 school children, aged 2-5 years, across 33 schools in Kon Tum, one of the poorest areas in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
GlobalRise has teamed with Coffee To Give to develop a nutrition baseline that measures the health impact of the program. This program, launched in September 2025, will last 5-6 years and may also include integration with a closely related goat farm project, that is growing from 1,000 goats to over 2,000, with the Coffee To Give program. This has the possibility of creating a self-sustaining, fortified milk feeding program for the communities in Kon Tum and other selected areas where kids need help.