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Myanmar

  • 120 sponsorship programmes
  • 2,800 sponsored children
  • 95 local volunteers
  • 9 overseas volunteers

Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a largely rural country composed of 135 officially recognised ethnic groups although in reality there are around 148, including the Rohingyas, Chin, Kayah, and Karen peoples… the list is a long one and Myanmar suffers from numerous internal conflicts. Children of the Mekong’s goal in the country is to support any initiatives to improve the educational system which needs to be completely overhauled following 50 years of military dictatorship. The system is extremely discriminatory, requiring students to take additional, fee-paying classes, making them inaccessible to the poorest young people.

The communities we work with, live mostly in ethnic states such as the Chin, Kachin, Shan, Kayah, and Karen communities as well as in the central plains and the Irrawaddy delta.  Some suffer the consequences of civil war or other major problems such as AIDS, drug trafficking etc.

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  • 55.1 million inhabitants of  which 64.9 % live in rural areas
  • Literacy rate: 75.6%
  • Official language: Burmese
  • Currency: Burmese kyat
  • Ethnic makeup: 148 ethnicities (68% of the local population are Bamar, 9% are Shan, and 7% are Karen)
  • Main religion: 87.9% of the population is Buddhist Theravada

CHILDREN OF THE MEKONG’S ACTIVITY IN MYANMAR:

Our child sponsorship programmes play a major part in giving education to the most underprivileged children in Myanmar. Sponsoring a child provides:

  • Access to education in the most isolated areas, especially among the ethnic minorities such as the Shan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, and in the country’s refugee camps (sanctuaries where families can live when their villages are in the civil war zone).
  • Supporting students in elementary school, middle school, and high school, enabling them to continue their studies by paying for the additional classes required and giving them the educational help and guidance to succeed.
  • Guiding and supporting young people through professional training courses (English studies, the hotel industry…) to enable them to enter the workforce and help them develop as people in their own right so that they can be open to the world around them and become part of society.

Children of the Mekong also run every year one-off projects, such as the construction and renovation of foster homes, for example, allow us to improve the environment in which our sponsored young people study and live.

Sponsor a child in Myanmar

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Burmese children at school

SPONSOR A CHILD IN MYANMAR

OUR NEWS IN MYANMAR

Children of the Mekong starts working in Myanmar through the Thai border.

2001

Start of operations across the country

2007