Sprouting Seeds Learning Centre

Dear Friends and Family, We trust this finds you all doing well and staying healthy. Here in Myanmar, we are rapidly jumping into the long, wet months of the monsoon season. As many of you might be aware, as we move half way through this 4th year of the military coup, the fighting continues to worsen. The overall situation of the countries continues to deteriorate as the political and economic situations too continue to worsen. Several factors make our work even more challenging during the last few months. Firstly, the rising costs of all products as the borders are for the most part closed has made business near impossible to open. A simple bag of bread flour for the bakery now has risen almost 7 times! Secondly, the new conscription law that was passed a few months ago and is now being enforced keeps most families concerned for their children. This law states that young men and women roughly between the ages of 18-30 years old will be forced to join the military. They already have started to take names and enforce this law around the country to varying degrees. Also, another level of blocks and bans on all forms of communication, and continued major cuts to internet and power make communications even more challenging than before. Finally, more active fighting has broken out in even more parts of the country which impact and influence all of the above-mentioned factors. We have a few youths that are ready to join us for our next round of internships, but parents are extremely concerned for the safety of their children and are not willing to send them away from the home these last few months. As well we have our concerns taking full responsibility for young people during such uncertain and precarious times. As you may also be aware, our cafe and training centre building here in Kalaw is now on the market to be sold. We are looking for another location, however, limited rental options and rapidly rising rental costs make finding another space to live and house the training centre and cafe project is extremely limited and challenging. Facing this extremely challenging situation, we are taking the next few months of heavy monsoon season, to focus on fundraising, program and training design and attempting to locate another building to move into. We are hoping for a brighter future here in Myanmar in the coming months. As we hold our breath and watch the situation, we quietly continue planning and preparing for new programs in the coming months. As always, your support is greatly needed and much appreciated. We look forward to sharing new from our work over the next few months in our next outreach!! Please mark your calendars for July 10th! GlobalGiving will be hosting a 1 day 2024 July Bonus Day, where your donations can be matched from 20-40%. This will be a wonderful time to make a unique contribution to continue to support our work here in Myanmar! Warmly, Sprouting Seeds Team

Dear Friends and Family, 

We trust this finds you all doing well and staying healthy. The winter months are here and the struggles in Myanmar continue. In a few days, we enter into the 4^th year of the military coup. Over the last few months, new developments have occurred and the fighting has intensified greatly in many parts of the country. Although we are safe here in Kalaw, we can feel the pressures of the war all around us. The political and economic crisis have worsened and there seems to be no clear end in sight. 

We have continued to run the training centre here at Sprouting Seeds but with the situation worsening, it grows more and more challenging each day. As many of you know, prior to Covid and the military coup, tourists came freely to Myanmar and our training centre and café were extremely successful and thriving throughout the entire year. We do not see any foreign travelers here in Myanmar anymore, most countries have issued warnings against any travel to Myanmar. Occasionally during the holidays, the town slowly becomes busy again with domestic tourism, but these holidays are few and far between, making it impossible to keep things running as normal. 

Despite the situation we continue to offer our trainings to young teachers and youth from around the country to attend our internship program for 3 months. Our last group was from the small town of Nyaung Shwe not far from Kalaw on the famous Inle Lake. We were excited to work with this group of youth and support their development and training for the last few months. 

We also had a large group of 130 kids come to join the training centres here in Kalaw for a fun filled day of activities! We are looking forward to more partnerships in the coming months!

We were able to participate in a small holiday fair, however, in a country in the middle of civil war, its hard for people to focus on these kinds of activities among the chaos. 

The new building which we moved into 2 years ago, and promised us a 10 year lease is now selling due to the situation in the country. So, once again, Sprouting Seeds will be looking for a new home to move to here in Kalaw. This will be our 4^th move since we opened the café and training centre several years ago. It is heartbreaking and quite exhausting moving the project every few years. 

As we explore our options around Kalaw, the rental costs of double and tripled in most cases due to the unstable political situation from the fighting. We are looking for a small place to move our project to and then we are exploring the options of moving the majority of the project to our rural site, Whispering Earth. 

We have a busy next few months trying to locate a new project site and also thinking about a potential move to the rural area. However, we continue to run trainings and provide capacity building and skills development to teachers and youth through our training centre. Your support and contributions are greatly appreciated, especially now as the fighting here in Myanmar continues to worsen and the political and economic situation rapidly following. 

For safety reasons, we are not posting much photos, we hope you understand and look forward to sharing some more news in the next few months and thank you for all your support!!! 

Warmly, 

Sprouting Seeds Team