The Sagaing earthquake in Myanmar last year was another terrible nightmare for Myanmar people who were already under massive tragedy and casualties because of the civil war. GHNI is involved in delivering food, water filters and bringing Help and Hope to the earthquake affected families and communities in partnership with Saya JB and Jeremy. Now, after nearly one year, GHNI Myanmar staff were invited and had the privilege of helping facilitate training on “Healthy Families” lessons. The workshop was intended to bring tools to individual and family financial management which help the participants understand more clearly how to manage the resources they have and become good stewards.

The workshop was three days with average participants of 35 people who have different financial backgrounds. The common challenge for them all was to manage their income sufficiently and look for new Income Generation opportunities. Of course, the challenges remain the same for every one in the country under the political and economic chaotic conditions. However, the feedback from the participants was encouraging that they gained more knowledge and techniques to manage their finances through budgeting. And they feel better equipped to generate new businesses to increase family passive incomes.

Another reason for this trip was to collaborate with our network pigfarm project at Saya JB land. The goal for our network in starting this project is to initiate a sustainable development demonstration farm for Transformational Community Development (TCD) practitioners and become a self-supporting network. During our time there, we were able to set up a Biosand water filtration system at the farm which produces at least 200 liters of clean water for the farm workers and the animals. The construction works are progressing using local resources such as bamboo, trees, river water, river stone and biochar burn from the farm bio mass. We hope that this farm will be well taken care of by the practical application of TCD sustainable values and principles.

Therefore, the trip to Mandalay was productive as it opened more doors for partnership opportunities with local TCD practitioners. Also the sustainable farm project is going to be a self-supporting funding source of sustainable development activities in Mandalay and across the country.

Thank you,

Written by Solomon, GHNI National Field Leader