By Jim Connor | Project Leader
Greetings friends and family,
It has been a challenging few more months here in Myanmar. The rains were especially heavy this year, and the annual mild flooding that we typically experience in Kalaw has been catastrophic this year.
During the last weeks of September, Typhoon Yagi swept through Southeast Asia, leaving devastating flooding in its wake. Kalaw was one of the towns in Myanmar that was struck extremely hard. Electricity and telecommunications were down in the town for over 3 weeks while the waters slowly receded. The flooding left wreckage that will take months to clean and weeks to regain access back to normal electricity, phone and internet.
Not only did the flooding waters destroy a large part of down town, but over 2,000 houses were either washed away or destroyed by the flood, along with many fatalities. Roads going to the village areas, including where Whispering Earth training centre is located were washed away and parts destroyed due to landslides. Even the road going into the farm has been damaged and in need of repairs.
Our continued efforts are the farm are on developing more buildings and continuing to secure the basic infrastructure at the farm. This will now include more work and repairs on the entrance road into the farm as well as continued efforts on buildings once the rains stop in November. We aim to continue our teacher and youth training programs once the rains stop and necessary infrastructure has been restored to roads and buildings at the farm.
Unfortunately, the civil war continues to development in more and more regions of the country. The conscription law, forcing young men and women into military service is still a key piece of the military regimes plans for recruiting more people as the conflict continues on towards what will be the fourth year of this most recent armed conflict.
We look forward to sharing more hopeful news in the coming months as the rains stop, the cool weather is on its way, which allows us more opportunities for trainings and construction at the farm. We also continue to hope for more peaceful times in the coming months, but the situation so far does not seem like that is what it will bring. And, as the wars in many other parts of the country continue to grow larger, the situation in Myanmar tends to be pushed even further to the back, not really reaching any international media sources.
We are grateful for your continued support and look forward to more hopeful news in the coming months!
By Jim Connor | Project Leader
By Jim Connor | Project Leader
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser