As one of the world's Least Developed Countries, Laos is a focal point for international organisations seeking to help income-poor people evolve ways of improving earnings and living conditions. At Lao Coco we believe that the country's abundance of beautiful and cheap natural materials can be exploited by a people with a rich and unique culture to create items of beauty that can be sold around the world. Since its earliest days the company has sponsored an underfunded school in central Vientiane, and the idea of educating people to take care of themselves is one of our central beliefs.

To this end Mimi Shada, founder of Lao Coco, began training jobless young people in Vientiane in 1993. Some of these artisans are still with the company, and having mastered their tools and materials are now creating handicrafts and furniture from the imagination. The success of his simple training methods was spotted, and in 1998 United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and the Lao Youth Union asked Mimi to create and run a training course for a group of unemployed people. The course proved popular with the participants and two more courses were commissioned between 2000 and 2002. Noting the quality of Lao Coco's funiture, UNESCO then asked the company to provide a training course for carpenters and later invited Mimi to assist and give training at the construction of a model renovation house in the World Heitage Site of Luang Phabang, northern Laos. The company's games were the inspiration behind a Danish Red Cross project to provide education through simple locally-produced games, which were designed and manufactured by Lao Coco.