Our Virtual Classrooms project is one year old! At Ningshawng Social Institute (NSI), almost 600 people from all over Kachin have taken part so far, learning English, science, teacher training and business management, or just reading for fun with the Tekkatho MyLibrary. We asked students what they thought, and they said:
We are hopeful that, with you by our side, we can create more bright and resilient futures for young people in Myanmar 2023.
With thanks for your continued support from everyone at the Tekkatho Foundation.
Our Education Officer in Kayin has written with an update. The project is based at Maw Paw Khoet community center, not too far from the Thai-Myanmar border. The center acts as an educational hub for the surrounding villages, supporting around 400 primary and secondary school children in their education. Ko Zayar Aung writes, “Many of the children’s parents are migrants, working as farming labourers or traders. They get regular income of about $8 per day, not enough to live on every day, so children help their parents after school e.g. in the paddy fields. Yet, the children are attending school regularly.”
We have set up a MyLibrary digital library that works off-grid at the community center. The MyLibrary contains thousands of exciting learning resources for students of all ages. Ko Zayar Aung has set up a reading program at the center and takes the MyLibrary on tour to local schools. He tells us the most popular resources are the British Council resources for learning English, and the physics, chemistry and mathematics videos from Khan Academy. Younger children love the local language storybooks from Third Story Project (“famous stories with lovely pictures”).
Students in Kayin still face many barriers to learning but your support means they can now access a wealth of educational resources, including the new national curriculum materials for the first time. If you are able to give a gift today, you could help even more children to learn, no matter what challenges lie ahead.
Our education coordinator in Kachin has been busy. With the generous support of Give a Hand, Ma Khon Mai has set up a new MyLibrary for the students of the Ningshawng Social Institute (NSI) in Palana. NSI provides young adults with vocation training, including a teacher training programme. The MyLibrary at NSI contains teacher training resources, plus hundreds of vocational training resources on agriculture, entrepreneurship, healthcare, workplace and digital skills. Ma Khon Mai has already started running regular Friday training – everyone welcome!
In other news, our project Help Us Provide Refugees in Myanmar an Education has been selected for matched funding on World Refugee Day, Monday June 20 2022. Any donation you make to this project between 7am- 11.59pm ET will be matched at 100%. Please consider making a small donation to Help Us Provide Refugees in Myanmar an Education on June 20 and double your impact power!
Please spread the word and thank you for your continuing support for young people in Myanma
It has been a year since the Myanmar military staged an attempted coup and jailed the country's elected leaders. The country remains in turmoil, with the education, health and finance systems near collapse. The International Rescue Committee estimate that more than 14 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2022 and 300,000 people have been displaced from their homes because of the coup.
Teachers are torn between not wanting to work in government schools but still wanting to deliver an education to the children in their communities. There is no clear answer, everyone is making their own decisions. We have stopped our work with universities for now. We are carrying on our work in schools and setting up new MyLibraries in non-state schools in the border regions like Kayin, Kachin and Rakhine State, working with the Norwegian Refugee Council and Give A Hand.
The effects of the coup are both long reaching and devastating to the ordinary people of Myanmar. We will continue to help the teachers of the next generation the best we can and are very grateful to you for your continued generosity.
The photo, taken in January, shows children learning with MyLibrary. The MyLibrary digital library is the white disc on the tabletop. Inside the library are thousands of resources designed to support school children in Myanmar, all adapted to work in places with no internet connection, like this school in Magway.
Thank you for supporting young people in Myanmar through the last year.
The turmoil in Myanmar following the military coup on 1 Feb has led to around 220,000 people being displaced from their homes. Around 75,000 of these new refugees are children. We have been working with the Norwegian Refugee Council to improve educational opportunities for young people in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. Our MyLibraries are self-contained, portable digital libraries and the Norwegian Refugee Council are taking five ‘on the road’ to villages and refugee camps around the main town of Sittwe.
Project manager May Thet says,
“The MyLibrary project in Rakhine is good because the political situation is a little calmer there. Although the Norwegian Refugee Council cannot operate completely as they wish, right now they can go to the field and show smaller groups how to use the MyLibrary digital library.
At first, the Norwegian Refugee Council were planning to use MyLibrary for schools, but now they are using MyLibrary to give young adults vocational training and distribute Covid-19 prevention resources in the villages and camps. They have made their own educational videos in Rakhine language and Myanmar language and uploaded into MyLibrary. We hope to re-share these locally made resources across other MyLibraries in Myanmar.”
All of us at the Tekkatho Foundation would like to say thank you so much for your continued support in difficult times. www.tekkatho.foundation
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