Education

Proficiency in English greatly benefits students when applying to tertiary educational institutions or for better job opportunities. Since 2011 five learning centres have opened in Burma and we have provided advice as needed.

The primary school at Kone Myint Thar Yor village educates 65 local children and seven other surrounding villages. We recently funded the construction of a new school building with our local partner, the Lahu Women Organisation. This project supported the additional needs of the school to further support the education of the village children.

In 2015 the number of students that enrolled in the beginning English class at TVLC exceeded the classroom capacity, resulting in over 20 students squeezed into a small room. We secured funds from one of our sponsors to extend the classroom and fund their other urgent needs.

Public areas inside the Koung Jor Shan Refugee Camp depend on electricity including the IT and English classrooms and street lights over the camp’s dirt roads. We were able to support the price increase ensuring the evening classes continued running and the dirt roads were well lit ensuring better safety for adults and children.

Tomato Village Learning Center offers English lessons to children ages six to 18. Most of these children belong to Burmese migrant or ethnic minorities, which puts them at a disadvantaged position in society. Proficiency in the English language will give these children better job opportunities and with that comes improved livelihood options.

This project aims to learn and identify the needs and challenges of the rural schools in the Ta Grah township in Karen State, Myanmar. The feasibility study will cover eight schools, 623 children and 40 teachers.

The Ban Nai Soi Community Learning Centre offers great educational opportunities to migrant youth who have no access to ‘regular’ education. Occasional donations by individual donors were not sufficient to secure food, medicine and the much needed renovation of one of the dormitories. We came in to help.

Mary Sweet Home Orphanage was in need of a hot shower system during the winter season, an office block for the teachers to have a space to prepare lessons and more. We connected the orphanage to one of our sponsors who funded these needs and agreed to fund additional needs.

The boarding house inside Koung Jor Shan Refugee Camp is home to displaced and orphaned Shan children. To meet their nutritional needs, and in response to the rising cost of food, a caregiver at the home approached us to discuss establishing a mushroom farm.

The primary school of Kone Myint Thar Yor village in eastern Shan state educates 65 children from eight villages in the area. The old school building was in terrible shape. The safety of the children was in jeopardy. We built a new school building, so the 65 children can learn in a safe and stimulating environment.

An online Social Enterprise training course aimed to teach young people how to use the internet for study purposes, encourage them to think critically, develop their sense of social responsibility and convert all that into practical activities which benefit their communities.

Arakanese Youth Network Society (AYNS) is committed to improving the education offered to children in Guwa, a poor fishing village on the Bay of Bengal. A priority in implementing their extensive plans is the renovation of a rundown school building.

The Toonpanya Foundation provides financial support to improve educational opportunities for children in need. We provided the funds for two students to bridge a year that was not yet covered for them.

A young child slipped on the wet and muddy stairs at the Tomato Village Learning Center. Fortunately this time nothing serious happened. We wanted to prevent this from happening again in the future, with even worse consequences. An informal chat with one of our donors led to the sponsoring of a completely new staircase.

New Blood School provides educational opportunities for children of migrant workers and a safe home for 200 students. We facilitated two visits to the project with one of our sponsors and he committed to supporting urgent needs of the project.

In 2014, Dutch foundation 'The Flying Nuns' donated funds to a number of KAKO projects. The donation helped fund the installation of three toilets and four wells, home renovations for a poor family and the purchase of water filters, library books and school supplies.