Support Teacher Trainings in rural Myanmar

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

We are happy to share some further images of the bamboo roof structure from the Shwenadi Monastic School building project. We are now in the process of designing the walls of the training hall and hope to start soon!!

In January, we had the privilege to travel far into the Eastern part of Shan State. We met a monk who has been part of our trainings and he has requested us to do some work with him on a new land that he recently received. He runs a small monastic school and hopes to open a larger school for children living in the rural area of that part of Shan State who have no access to schools.

We traveled over 12 hours in a caravan with four vehicles and over 30 Buddhist monks to see the new land and site for the new school and training centre. On our way, we were able to visit many small, very rural Shan schools. We worked with the young monks who then were able to lead the Play for Peace sessions with the children out in the forest. It was an amazing time!!

The land for the school and training centre is in the middle of a pristine river and the land is a 65 acre island with over 20 waterfalls dotted throughout the island in the river. We spent several days assessing the land and discussing possibilities for the protection of the land and the development of the school and training centre. We are looking forward to starting working with the local teams over the next few months. We will work with teacher training, and design for the land and other projects.

We are looking forward to sharing more updates on the trainings we will be providing for the groups in Eastern Shan State over the next few months. In the meantime, we continue our work in Northern Myanmar, Kachin State and will be traveling there this coming week to continue work on the development of the community school which will now also act as a children’s orphanage to house many of the children currently caught in the conflict in Kachin State. We are also working with our Kachin partners planning a trip to the International Democratic Education Conference, which will happen in Israel at the end of the month. Keep posted for more details!!

Warmly,

Jim