Support Teacher Trainings in rural Myanmar

Greetings Everyone!

We hope you are all doing well. Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who has so generously contributed to the Rural Teacher Trainings in Myanmar program. Your support is greatly appreciated and allows us to be able to support the teachers and students we work with in Myanmar.

Here in Myanmar, the monsoon season has started and is now in full swing. Because of the heavy rains and due to the starting of the Myanmar school year on June 1^st , it has been a quiet time for our trainings. For the last three months, teachers have been preparing for the opening of school and fully engaged with their students as the first months of school have started.

However, we still have been very busy working in collaboration with other organizations over the last few months to support various trainings. Whispering Seed provides support training for several Myanmar based organizations throughout the country. Working with teachers, students, parents, community members and Buddhist abbots and nuns that run monastic schools, our aim is to provide support and trainings primarily focused on Holistic Education and Sustainability. The trainings are based in experiential learning and incorporate both theoretical learning as well as hands on practical skills training.

Here are some of the things Whispering Seed has been active in collaboration with other organizations in Myanmar.

• Supporting teacher trainings which focus on Self-Awareness, Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking (RWCT) and Practical Life Skills
• Teaching classes on History of Education, Introduction of Holistic Education, Child Development and Early Childhood Psychology
• Teaching practical life skills to teachers and students (knitting, crochet, handicraft projects, baking, cooking, earthen building, Permaculture, Deep Ecology)
• Preparation for Myanmar Interfaith group to travel to South Korea for 24^th annual International Democratic Education Conference and Exposure Visit to Alternative Schools (preparations before and after the program)
• Travelled to Korea for Democratic Education Conference with 21 participants from Myanmar (21 representatives from Myanmar came together for the South Korea trip, students, teachers, parents, policy makers and a Catholic priest from Kachin State in northern Myanmar along with a group of senior Buddhist monks from all over the country)

Upcoming trainings over the next few months:

• Providing more support for Myanmar based NGO’s working on education reform and Buddhist monastic education
• Earthen Building Trainings in Northern Shan State to build schools for Kachin Communities
• Holistic Education and Earthen Buildings Trainings to be held in northern Burma in Kachin State
• Support for development of project along the Myanmar-Thailand border in Kayin State (Karen State) with former staff of Whispering Seed
• Youth Leadership Trainings and Earthen Building Training in Southern Myanmar
• Support for Leadership Trainings and Advanced Training of Trainers (TOT) trainings
• Working directly with youth and teachers in monastic schools to develop Children’s Parliaments, small scale kitchen gardens, playgrounds and Permaculture projects

Links:

• Whispering Seed newsletter~Issue 4

2^nd Report for Rural Teacher Trainings in Myanmar

 For the last 3 months, WS has been extremely busy supporting various Teacher Training Projects around the country, with a focus on groups working in Shan and Kachin States.

Support for Shanan Education Network in Myitkyina, Kachin State and Northern Shan State
In April and May we offered support for 2 teacher trainings provided by Shanan Education Network, aiming to provide new models for teachers in Shan and Kachin States. Having the opportunity to work in Myitkyina, Kachin State and learn more about the challenging conditions which teachers face and the lack of government support for education. Teachers were excited at the models for Holistic Education and will bring these new techniques back to their classrooms. 

Support for Naung Taung Monastic School Pa-O Youth Leadership Training in Southern Shan State
After attending the SEMS TOT (Training of Trainers) in January, several Pa-O teachers from Naung Taung Monastic School ran a 1 month Youth Leadership Training for Pa-O youth from all over Shan State. WS supported the training by providing training on holistic and democratic education, child development and practical life skills. The training for over 80 Pa-O youth supported 

Earthen Building Classrooms for Kachin Communities in Northern Shan StateIn March and April WS traveled again to China border to support the Kachin communities their in finishing their 2 earthen buildings classrooms. WS with help from Dragonfly Community Foundation Thailand taught earthen brick making and built the first classroom. The local community, including woman from the local IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp built the second building by themselves. WS then joined again for another few days to teach plastering and earthen painting in order to finish the buildings before the start of the new school year on June 1^st. Several new buildings will be designed and the building process will start just following the monsoon season in October-November of this year.

 Upcoming Project for Teacher Training Projects

• Further earthen building school and classroom projects for Kachin communities along the China border in Northern Shan State
• Further trainings with network of Monastic Schools through CPME and SEMS
• Working to support the establishment of a new project of Whispering Seed staff in the Myanmar side of 3 Pagoda Pass near Sangklaburi

Links:

• Issue 4-Whispering Seed latest newsletter

Buildings Earthen Schools and Classrooms for Kachin groups in northern Shan State

In February, Whispering Seed along with local development groups, led the first earthen building training for 60 participants from 13 Kachin communities from all over northern Shan State. Each of the 13 communities needs schools and classrooms for their students, who mainly come from the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps within the Kachin Baptist churches we are working with. Due to fighting along the Chinese border, several IDP camps, similar to refugee camps, but with Myanmar boundaries, have been forced to provide basic food, shelter, healthcare and basic education for Kachin women and children fleeing the conflict zones.Government military offensives in these regions have recently created over 100,000 IDPs, leaving these poor church communities and their friends trying to survive and support the IDPs in very challenging circumstances.

Women and children from the IDP camps, teachers, directors of the church, community members and patients from the drug rehabilitation center all joined to make over 10,000 bricks for the first set of school buildings. Buddhist monks from Myanmar also came to join the training, working together with Kachin Baptist as they gained necessary skills not only to build their own schools in each of the 13 communities using local, sustainable, cost-effective and appropriate building materials. Participants were so excited they said they would start building their own homes using the new techniques they learned!!!!

Advanced Teacher Training of Trainers for Buddhist Monastic Education

Together with Spirit in Education Movement, Socially Engaged Monastic Schools and Center for the Promotion of Monastic Education, Whispering Seed assisted in facilitating an advanced Training of Trainers held in souther Shan State for 20 monastic schools teachers from all over Myanmar.

The training included personal development, life skills training, exposure visits to local projects and sites in around Shan State, including a visit to Inle Lake to meet with other teachers who are also working as community leaders. The training was a great success and partnership with many organizations. We look forward t o many more trainings to support teachers to better enhance the quality of life for the poor and marginalized children of Myanmar.

We are in the process of several other trainings, please see our attached report and keep posted for further reports on GlobalGiving and our website (www.whisperingseed.org).

Please find a more detailed remote on our website at: http://whisperingseed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Global-Giving-Teacher-Training-1a.pdf

Links:

• Whispering Seed website
• Detailed report on Teacher Training in Myanmar