Dear Family, Friends and Supporters of Sprouting Seeds Learning Centre,

Thanks to all of your support we are now entering our busiest period for the café with a renewed sense of confidence. We took the time during the rainy period to further improve the interior of the café and are delighted with the natural look and feel of the space. Pine tables and the earthen counter blend beautifully to create a calming environment for weary travellers and locals alike to rest and enjoy our culinary delights! We also took the time to experiment with new ice cream flavours and a range of exciting baked goods including …… , the response to which have been fantastic!

As many of you know the café supports the Sprouting Seeds Learning Centre which is a collaborative environment in which young people can join us and learn what it takes to run a small business. We work to empower individuals and groups such as monastic schools to set up social enterprises of their own. We are therefore delighted to announce that our interns Hani and Char Tae who have spent the last nine months with us have launched their own venture here in Kalaw. Their business Clover is a shop for traditional and innovative products such as bags, cards and natural soap all made by differently abled individuals who struggle to find employment. The girls have done an amazing job and are providing a much needed market for these beautiful products. We wish them all the best with their venture and hope to see it go from strength to strength.

In October we hosted a small group of young people from all over Myanmar who were meeting in Kalaw and Pyin Oo Lwin to learn about social enterprise. Exposure visits like this are key in helping educate young people about the power of business to do good and, to inspire them to believe in their potential to make a difference. The group was incredibly engaging and are interested in starting a café of their own so we gave them a baking lesson.

We look forward to a busy few months for the café and thank you all again for your support. It’s a been a long journey but the pace of change in Myanmar is now accelerating and we are excited to be part of a movement for a stronger more democratic and equal Myanmar.

Dear Family, Friends and Supporters of Sprouting Seeds Learning Centre

We are now in the middle of the rainy season and things are moving along with the café.  We now have two new interns living and working with us from the Dry Zone.

Char  and Hanni are both very interested in all we have to offer here at Sprouting Seeds Learning Centre and will be staying with us for several months to help with the project and learn all they can. They aim to move back to their native town and open a small yoga studio with café and restaurant. We are thrilled to have them helping us and are excited we can support their dreams!

Char’s mother is a natural medicine practitioner and we are starting to explore options for her to make regular visits to the learning centre to offer holistic treatment for patients and workshops on natural medicine. She taught us how to make a great medicine with jaggery and aloe vera.

We also had a young high school student from South Korea come and volunteer with us. We were excited to have him here at the project and he shared about Korean culture through cooking and a variety of games. It was a great exchange!

We have continued to work on the café space and recently built an earthen counter in the café. We experimented with several different lime plaster techniques and even experimented with a new kind of natural earth render called tadelekt which will make the finish completely smooth and water proof.

It is the middle of the rainy season and this means thing are a bit slow. We continue to work on new products, slowly planting the outside space with more trees, veggies and herbs and also our continued work with trainings. We also continue to work on all of our products with special focus on our seasonal ice creams!!! Dragonfruit, strawberry, mango and more!!!

We thank you for all of your support!

Jim 

Dear friends and supporters of our Teacher Training Programs here in Myanmar.

We have had yet another very busy few months here in Myanmar. It is now the middle of the rainy season and things have settled down a bit as we make plans for the next few months.

During the last months, we have been focusing some of our energies on sharing new skills in earth and bamboo construction. We have been working with a team of Indonesian trainers who are bringing these new skills of treating, constructing and sustainable propagation of bamboo.

Our focus in has been on the development of one of the Buddhist monastic schools which we work with in the Dry Zone of Myanmar. Shwenadi monastic school is home to almost 450 ethnic Chin children. We have been supporting the monk to build a sustainable training centre at the school, made of mud and constructed with bamboo framing and roofing.

We constructed the first training hall to accommodate over 60 participants. The next buildings will include sleeping accommodation for the participants, a dining hall and kitchen and accommodation for the trainers.

This is a long term project aimed at building the capacity of the locals involved in the project. Part of the work is to train a group of local Myanmar workers to become skilled trainers in bamboo treatment, construction and propagation.

The training was a huge success and over 80 participants showed for the first two days. The rest of the training had over 35 participants all the way until the end of the training. We have made plans to continue supporting the monastery to finish the building over the next few months.

Besides the building at Shwenadi, we are now planning two more bamboo trainings to support the development of another school and learning center in Southern Shan State working primarily with ethnic Pa-O communities.

During the last few months we also supported another trip to Thailand with a group of Senior Buddhist monks and nuns from Myanmar to learn about holistic education, community development and sustainability. Our work with SEMS (Socially Engaged Monastic Schools) will continue.

We are looking forward to share more news as the next projects begin in the coming months!!!

Warmly,

Jim