Youth and Nature Philippines — Programme Vision
🌱 This programme is currently in the planning and fundraising stage. We are actively raising the funds needed to turn this vision into a reality. Everything you read here represents what we are working every single day to build — and we need your support to make it happen.
My name is Ray Clark. I am a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under Jeff "IPPON" Lawson and the legendary Japanese champion Yuki Nakai — two of the most respected figures in the global BJJ community. I have spent years training, competing, and coaching, but the deeper I went into martial arts, the more I realised that the greatest thing the mat ever gave me wasn't a medal or a belt. It was a sense of purpose, self-belief, and the ability to face hardship without running from it.
That realisation changed everything. It planted a seed: what if the children who needed those qualities most — the ones growing up with the least — could have access to the same transformative experience?
During my time in the Philippines, spending time in rural communities, witnessing first-hand the poverty, the lack of opportunity, and yet also the extraordinary warmth, resilience, and spirit of the people there. I have sat with families who don't know where their next meal is coming from, and I have sat with their children — who, despite everything, still laugh, still dream, still reach. It broke my heart and filled it at the same time.
That is where the Little Warriors programme was born. Not from a boardroom. Not from a strategy document. From sitting on the ground with children and asking: "What if someone gave you a real chance?"
One of the most profound and humbling chapters of this journey has been my personal relationship with Dr. Jane Goodall — one of the most iconic and inspiring human beings alive. I worked alongside Jane for over 22 years, and she was a close friend to me and my family. I am also a proud member of her Council of Hope within her Legacy — an honour I do not take lightly. Dr. Goodall is, of course, world-renowned for her groundbreaking research with chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, but her life's work has always extended far beyond the forest. She has spent decades championing the interconnectedness of all living things — and the central role that young people must play in healing our planet.
Youth and Nature Philippines is a proud member of Dr. Goodall's Roots & Shoots global network — a movement she founded that now spans over 60 countries, empowering young people to take compassionate action for people, animals, and the environment. Being part of Roots & Shoots is not simply a badge of honour. It is a commitment — a shared language of responsibility and hope.
Dr. Goodall has spoken directly to the principles that underpin what we are building. She believes — as I do — that every individual matters, that every individual makes a difference, and that if we do not invest in the young, we have no future worth protecting. When she speaks about the youth of the world, her eyes light up. She dedicated the final chapters of her life to nurturing that next generation of guardians. To have her life's work and philosophy woven into the foundation of the Little Warriors programme is something I do not take lightly. It is a responsibility I carry every single day.
The vision is a permanently established centre — a place where children can come every day, free of charge, and access two things that have the power to transform their lives: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training and hands-on regenerative farming education.
On the mats, children will learn discipline, emotional resilience, respect, and physical confidence. BJJ is uniquely powerful in this regard — it teaches you that being smaller or weaker is not a limitation, that intelligence and technique can overcome force, and that failure on the mat is simply preparation for the next attempt. These are not just martial arts lessons. They are life lessons that children in vulnerable communities desperately need.
Alongside the academy, we plan to establish a working regenerative farm. Children and their families will learn to grow food using sustainable, organic methods — composting, crop rotation, natural pest management, and land stewardship. This is not just about food. It is about restoring a relationship with the earth that so many communities have lost, and teaching the next generation that the land is not something to be exploited, but something to be cared for and to care for them in return.
Poverty does not just take away food and shelter. It takes away hope. It tells a child, before they are old enough to understand, that the world was not made for them. That they are less worthy, less capable, less deserving of a future.
Every child who walks onto our mats will receive the opposite message. They will be told — through every session, every breakthrough, every small victory — that they matter. That their body is capable of extraordinary things. That their mind is sharp and their spirit is strong. A child who feels that once will never entirely forget it. And a child who feels it every day will carry it into everything they do, for the rest of their life.
We have already seen this begin to happen in the early work we have done on the ground. Children who were shy and withdrawn have begun to stand taller. Children who had never been praised for anything have started to come alive when they land a technique, or when they pull a vegetable from the soil they planted themselves. These are not small things. These are moments of becoming.
When a child changes, the ripple moves outward. Parents who see their child standing with more confidence begin to feel hope in a way that words alone cannot create. Families who are involved in the farm gain practical knowledge, food security, and a source of income that does not depend on the volatility of day labour or the mercy of others.
The planned economic model is intentionally circular: produce from the farm feeds the children in the programme, reducing operating costs. Surplus is sold at local markets, generating revenue that flows back into the academy. The community becomes invested — not as recipients of charity, but as active participants in something they helped build and that sustains them in return. This is the difference between aid and empowerment. We are planning for the latter.
Communities that grow together, that learn together, that share a sense of collective pride and purpose — these are communities that become more resilient to hardship, more cohesive in crisis, and more capable of creating futures that no outside force can take away.
Dr. Goodall has spent her life teaching the world that we cannot separate the wellbeing of people from the wellbeing of the natural world. They are inseparable. Poverty drives deforestation. Desperation drives environmental destruction. When communities have no other way to survive, the forest pays the price. The animals pay the price.
The Philippines is one of the most biodiverse — and most ecologically threatened — nations on earth. Its forests, coastlines, and wildlife are under immense pressure. By teaching children and families to grow food sustainably, to compost, to work with the land rather than against it, we are planting the seeds of a different relationship between these communities and their natural environment.
Children who grow up understanding how to work with the earth do not grow up to be those who destroy it. They become its guardians. They teach their own children. And they begin to understand, in a deeply personal way, that the health of the land and the health of the community are the same thing. This is the Roots & Shoots philosophy lived out in the soil of the Philippines — and it is precisely why Dr. Goodall's work and ours feel so aligned.
The simplest way to describe our model is a circle. The farm feeds the children. The children train and grow stronger. Their families work the farm and build knowledge. The produce sustains the programme. The programme nurtures more children. And the cycle grows.
This is not a charity that needs to be indefinitely propped up by external funding. It is a community institution designed to eventually sustain itself — to stand on its own two feet, just as we are teaching the children to do. The initial fundraising we are doing now is the foundation. Once built, the vision is for this centre to generate enough through its farming activities and community engagement to operate independently, expanding its reach year on year.
We are at the beginning. The land, the academy, the farm — these things are not yet built. But the vision is crystal clear, the commitment is total, and the need is urgent. Children are growing up right now in the communities we are planning to serve, and every day that passes is a day they spend without the opportunity we can give them.
We are raising funds to acquire land, construct the academy, purchase farming equipment, and establish the infrastructure that will make this programme possible. We need partners, donors, and believers — people who understand that investing in a child today is the most powerful act of environmental and humanitarian stewardship there is.
If this vision moves you — if you believe, as Dr. Goodall does, that every individual makes a difference — please consider supporting us. Visit our donation page, explore our partnership opportunities, or simply get in touch. We would love to hear from you.
"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." — Dr. Jane Goodall