Women for Freedom

Dear friends,

I want to share with you the joy and gratefulness that I feel from our women circles in Yangon. The first circles have been held and our volunteer in Myanmar, whom I trained and whom I worked together with to build the circles, has been growing her skills and her inner strengths. She did not know that she could hold her own women circles, but she felt the importance of the project and also the excitement of starting something that she had to learn. 

I explained to her about the methods I use in women circles and we talked with another volunteer from Myanmar, who has been to my women circles and can also give women circles herself. We researched what would be beneficial for the women in Yangon under the circumstances that they live in right now. There is a trust issue, living under dictatorship, bring that in as a big challenge, when you want to hold a women's circle, where everything is built on trust. Trust and feeling safe is the foundation of a women's circle. So we decided to make small groups, where most women would be from similar networks, so that they could start with a safe feeling. We also decided that the exercises would be more adapted to the culture of the women and our volunteers were very creative in finding exactly the right exercises for the themes of the circles.

The themes were decided:

1.Grounding & Getting to know women circles & eachother;

2.Self Love & Compassion;

3.Inner Strengths;

4.Living from the Heart & Soul;

5.Stay Connected to your authentic self & to your sisters.

Together we held a pilot women's circle with friends of our volunteers. After the pilot, we finalized the project and the first circles started.

Here is some feedback from our volunteer and the participants:

Activities & Flow

The activities were carried out smoothly and in alignment with the theme. Participants engaged with openness and sincerity. They shared their reflections respectfully and listened deeply to one another. The flow of the session felt natural, with each activity supporting the next.

Energy & Group Dynamics:

The group energy was gentle, supportive, and harmonious. Participants connected easily with one another, and there was a sense of shared understanding. Even those who were initially quiet gradually opened up as the session progressed. Overall, the energy of the Circle felt safe, grounded, and nurturing.

Participants Experience:

All of the participants expressed that the session felt meaningful and healing. They appreciated the safe space, the clarity of the activities, and the opportunity to reflect. Some mentioned that they felt lighter, more connected, and more aware of their inner emotions after the session.

Feelings of the participants before the circle:

"I just looked at the information and thought I should join. It wasn’t a lastminute decision."

"I was curious about what kind of people I would meet and what we would be sharing. I felt excited.

"I took the wrong bus, so I became a bit worried. I didn’t expect the place to be like this: the compound is lovely. Honestly, it felt like I was in another country, or at least in a different culture. It was a very unique and new experience for me."

"Before starting, my feelings were a bit mixed and unsettled. I felt worried and thought, what should I do, can I do it, and will everything be okay?"

Feedback about the participant's feelings after the circle: 

"It felt like opening my heart and having quality time with friends who share similar feelings and energy"

"My mind felt very calm. It made me want to try meditating more. I also realized that every woman carries her own unseen struggles."

"I became so comfortable with others that it felt like we had become friends. My emotional state also became very calm."

"I felt like I had joined something really good."

The main goals of the women circles are:

To let the (upcoming) women leaders feel grounded and safe, to get them to know their own worth and their inner strengths, to make them feel the calmness inside themselves and let them take care of themselves, so that they can keep sharing their strengths and be role models for the other women in their community. 

Sisterhood is important in our circles, we share what needs to be shared in the moment. We ask you to trust that what you need to say will come. The beautiful thing is we listen deeply to each other and ourselves and we will recognize each other's stories and will know our own experiences better through our sharing and listening. The sisterhood that we share makes us feel connected to each other and to everything around us. This connectedness makes us feel our inner strengths and helps us to start living from our inner strengths.

We are so grateful for your support, so that we can support the women leaders of Myanmar to keep growing themselves and supporting their communities.

Love Ursula

In 2025 we started two new projects inside Myanmar, with our long term volunteers who never cease to work hard to achieve the best possible results. It has been amazing to work mostly online with them and see how they are resourceful and resolve issues without hesitation. With little resources and no backup from an actual office, they are flexible and work from wherever they can.

Our Mental Health Program provided twenty women with five to seven counseling sessions with professional counselors inside Myanmar, the sessions were by phone in order to have the privacy protected for all participants. Most women participate in CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement) activities and part of their struggles come from the work they do and are often sensitive issues.

The feedback of the program is really good, most women felt they could overcome their difficult situations, some felt very strongly that they could move forward on their own with the support they got and some were on their way and felt they could use some more support. The women can heal themselves and they know themselves better and they feel more stable and able to stand up in difficult circumstances.

The participants would like to enroll this project also in rural areas and as followup they are very interested in women support circles.

Feedback participant Mental Health Project: “I believe I am moving forward and moving on from the past experiences. I feel a lot better these days.”

Feedback participant Mental Health Project:“After finishing counseling sessions, I felt a lot better. During the session, I talked with the counselor on the topic of being in the present and she asked me about what I can do to help myself to feel better right now? Every time I have a negative thought in my mind I will say stop and I will find a topic that is related to what I have been feeling and try to read about those topics and it makes me really feel better. She also gave me a link to an article about mental health issues, which I am still rereading, because I don’t yet fully understand it. During the sessions, I still question myself, do I really learn anything because when a negative situation affects me again I don't know how to react to it. However, I believe that it was part of the process of healing. After finishing all the sessions, I feel growth inside of me.”

We are very happy with the results and are now implementing our follow up project: women support circles.

The English train the trainers TKT (Teaching Knowledge Tests) module 1 project, was also very successful and there were 3 scholarship grants given to the top three students.

Feedback from our volunteer project manager: “The TKT Module 1 has achieved its primary objectives, with all three scholarship recipients demonstrating exceptional progress. Key accomplishments include: 100% attendance and active participation across all sessions. • Consistent academic improvement, with average test scores rising to 82-85%. • Practical application of teaching methodologies in real classroom settings. • Overcoming challenges through self-directed learning and proactive communication. The program is on track to produce confident, skilled educators capable of contributing meaningfully to Myanmar’s educational landscape.

Training Progress and Proactive Measures

The current Module 1 training curriculum is designed to deliver core theoretical content and familiarize participants with the examination format. Observations indicate a significant and consistent improvement in the trainees' conceptual understanding as the module has advanced. The trainees have proactively enrolled in specialized Module 1 Exam Preparation classes immediately upon completing their core Module 1 training to further consolidate their learning and build examination confidence. They are now preparing to take the TKT Module 1 exam in the near future. This initiative underscores their strong commitment, allowing them to focus intensively on exam techniques and practice, thereby positioning themselves for the best possible chance of success. 

Scholarship Recipient Student 1 feedback about the TKT Course:“Most of these methods are not commonly used in Myanmar. So, when I found out the techniques of these methods and how we teach the language in multiple ways depends on the students' level and needs. Also it is quite important to create a suitable classroom environment depending on the subject we are going to teach and the different learning styles of the students. It is mind-blowing and I realize that we teachers need to be open-minded and plan an inclusive education and learning styles for all kinds of students. Some students might be very much interested in visuals but some might need to do more movement during the lesson or some might be more interested to do different types of role-play activities or doing projects with their friends. Even today, in my speaking lesson with a student who is pursuing a Bachelor of Education Degree, I taught him that there are different types of errors and why students make errors. Some errors are easy to be fixed when teachers point them out, but some are not, etc. He will become a teacher one day so if he understands that there are different types of errors and when students make certain types of errors, it will be useful for his future career. For example, it is useful to me now because now I can understand students when I know the reason. I can suggest different ways to improve their mistakes.”

Scholarship Recipient Student 2 feedback about the TKT Course:“I am truly proud to be a scholarship student of the We Women Foundation and deeply grateful for this opportunity. I will do my best to be an honorable representative of the foundation and to apply my knowledge and experience effectively in meaningful areas.”

 It has been a very rewarding experience to see so many CDM teachers trained, to be more skilled teachers. Our volunteer project manager, has evaluated the project and is now enrolling an improved project, with lessons learned included in the new project. I very proud and I feel humble to work with so many high skilled and motivated women and to see so many motivated students and teachers. 

Thanks to your support, this project has been made possible. We are ever grateful.

We are sending you all love and light,

Ursula and the We women team!