Project Pinnya Tazaung

Chinese gov't special envoy ends Myanmar visit

2007-11-18T12:17:00.000+08:00

Chinese gov't special envoy ends Myanmar visit

08:01, November 17, 2007

camp

2007-10-09T23:14:00.000+08:00

combined camp with C3. contact kevin and sayadaw before confirming plans.
planning the MINDS camp this december

reflections on world peace

2007-10-09T18:14:00.000+08:00

building friendships through cultural and educational exchange
it still links back to peace in the end
yes we need to link back to world peace as our ultimate goal

friendship - when we are friends with each other, we don't fight. We talk and we try to understand each other. We give and take, we share the good and bad times. There's peace.

cultural and educational exchange
As friends we learn about each other's culture so that we understand each other better. We see things beyond our comfort zone and things that we know.

educational exchange
1. first I myself must read and find out more about world peace, the countries in context
2. then together we share with others
3. and we start this ripple effect of youths reading, talking, sharing and taking action for peace.

it may sound impossible, too big right now but really world peace starts from each of us.

light of education
ignorance is not always bliss. when we know more, we can do more to change the current situation for the better. This is where education comes in. Education gives people a chance to change their current situation for the better and in turn help others to do the same.

first meeting

2007-09-22T00:29:00.000+08:00

a lot of firsts and a lot of experimentation.
the power to change the course of the meeting
next week we have an outing by the two guys
getting people to speak
to learn facilitation
i think this team is going to be exciting!

His Excellency.

2007-05-22T22:32:00.000+08:00

I managed to arrange an appointment with His Excellency, U Win Myint, the ambassador of Myanmar at the Embassy this afternoon through Miss Ina, his secretary.

Had a good dialogue with him. I learnt a lot from the short meeting with the ambassador about Myanmar and he was very very friendly and helpful for our project. His English is not very fluent but he really made the effort to communicate with me. I really appreciate it. He told us during the first meeting that he only started to speak English when he came to Singapore one and half years ago. Hey, if you consider this, then he learnt pretty fast.

I wonder what he thinks of me. the disheveled looking girl who just came in from the rain, in her white top, brown longyi, black myanmar slippers and funky purple specs, and who smiled almost non stop, uttering "I see", "Oh...", "yes yes I understand", "Thank you!" for most of the conversation.

He is a middle aged man with a kind disposition.
I took much more notice of him today than the first meeting.
He was in a white striped shirt and tie with a shining gold tie pin.

I launched into the topic and showed him the revised proposal, cover letter and Mr Aung's email and fax. I recapped what he shared with me during the first meeting about Thar Si being in a dry zone and high accessibility via the Union Highway and train.

He read the letters and clarified that Thar Si is a township, not a village. Thus there is a miscommunication. He recommended Thar Si Township, not a village. The village will be up to MOE to decide which is the most suitable for us.

Initially he asked me to correct the Thar Si part and resubmit. Then he asked me to "Please wait for a while, I will call the Minister of Education."

He then went into his room and they talked for a while in Burmese. I could understand some words here and there haha. He refered to our project as "Operation Letpabya".

After the call, he explained the following to me.
1. He has clarified the project and visit to Thar Si. The Ministry has been very busy that's why they forgot about our proposal until we sent them the reminder letter. Thus it is a very short time frame for them to process the proposal.

2. The Minister of Education will submit the proposal to the Foreign Affairs Peace Council (FAPC) and await their approval. All matters related to the foreigners have to be passed by the FAPC and they have the ultimate say.

3. Usually they will approve our project. He reassured the Minister that our project for leisure and social, not political. How nice of him to put in a good word for us right!

4. The FAPC meets once a week. The Minister told him to tell us to wait for one or two weeks. The Minister of Cambodia is visiting Myanmar now and all the ministers and officials are busy with his visit. So the FAPC may not meet this week. If they meet, then we may get our approval within this week. If not, we have to wait until next week.

5. I daringly asked how high are our chances of getting the approval. He didn't give a straight answer but said that we have a "near chance". He means we have a high chance, now what we do is wait. We might have to delay our project if the approval is only after two weeks.

6. I brought up the issue of air tickets as one of the concerns we have. He said that he has spoken to Mr Aaron Teo, the country manager of MAI about our project and that Mr Teo is very willing to support us. "He will help you, you can ask him."

I tried to clarify how Mr Teo can help. Do I book tickets first? The ambassador said in the end that we can do a temporary booking first and when the approval comes, we confirm or change the booking, Mr Teo will help us.

It sounds pretty good eh. We just book first then confirm later when approval comes. We will have to talk to Mr Teo and see what he says. Now that we have the ambassador's support, we stand in a better position eh. ;P

7. I asked if we could speak to and meet some officials when we are in Myanmar. He then explained to me there are different levels of officials I can meet. The township level educational officials and if I want to meet the General-Director of the Ministry of Education, there are three.
There is the G-D of Yangon, G-D of Upper Myanmar in Mandalay, G-D of Lower Myanmar. I should meet the G-D of Upper Myanmar, more appropriate for our project.

I will need to submit these requests to Mr Aung Htike directly. Next time we should write it in our proposal.

8. I also asked if we can bring in a video camera to document our project. He did hesitated for a while before answering. I will have to request and I should write it in the proposal next time. It is because the government is disappointed with some people whom they allow to bring in video cameras and they only shoot the "poor side of the country, not the happy side."

Later when I told Teng Soon about this, his first reaction was "What for to focus only on the poor side? Every country has its poor, not just Myanmar. I am sure you can find a lot of poor people and ugly side in Singapore too."

I totally agree.

Some people may say that oh they are documenting the "truth". Well, "truth" is often subjective and manipulatable. The media uses footage and pictures for its own purposes, that, we should all know. So long as it will grab headlines, they will do it.

I thought about Daisaku Ikeda's essay and the film "Another Way of Seeing Things".
Although I do not live in Myanmar, from what I read up on the country's past and present, I feel that too much emphasis has been made from the Western point of view about the political situation, to the extent that the cultural and human aspects have been so neglected.

Instead of making friends and having dialogue, they impose and renew trade sanctions and make so much hoo ha over the political situation. It just increases the fear factor and leads them to taking action like building the nuclear facilities to strengthen themselves.

I am inspired by Dr Toynbee to want to go on site and see and hear for myself. He went to Turkey, to both the Greek and Turkish sides, to see the different points of view. At that time, the media was on the Greek side, so news gave very biased perspective. Toynbee rose up and presented the Turkish side of things. How they too suffered from the war.

I am taking great pains to record in detail what I have seen, heard and learnt during this process because it's my own development and it's also for all the future juniors who will embark on their own learning journeys to the Land of Pagodas. ;]

"otherwise in the future there will be another Siew Kuang who is lost." -Teng Soon

so right now Action to be taken
1. Contact Mr Aaron Teo about air tickets.

2. Write video camera and meeting with official requests to Mr Aung Htike.

3. Prepare for the trip. If we really cannot make it in time for 2June, most likely we can make the 4June flight.

4. Think of what you want to learn from this whole project! and how you want to document what you have learnt! ;]

5. t shirt.

A Name.

2007-05-21T02:12:00.001+08:00

thinking about whether we should give a new name
that would reflect the goal better.

Dawn.

2007-05-20T23:39:00.000+08:00

i need to write this down.

feel that i have just been given a new pair of glasses.
and things seem so much clearer now.
even though we have not got the approval.

it started with the question Jenny asked us during the workshop
"Is your project a humanitarian or development project?"

then the definition for humanitarian work = short term
eg disaster relief, war, refugee
work that organisations like Mercy Relief does.
Volunteers need to be skilled.
During the time when the tsunami hit Aceh, a lot of people signed up to go over
but they only sent the skilled people like doctors and nurses down.
it was only after about 8months then they could send the unskilled volunteers like youths for YEP projects down for the rehabilitation programme.

so, our project is not a humanitarian project.
then it must be developmental right?

the definition for development work
is that it is concerned with issues that need Long term commitment
such as poverty, water sanitation, capacity building for street children
these projects need a lot of money and people with some kind of skill
and commitment.

our project.. well we are a developmental project right.

then Jenny asked us,
"What is your budget for the whole project? Including air fare, transport etc."
All of us gave figures. Well ours is $12k. Other groups had $20k, $15k...etc.

"How much money is spent on the actual project? minus the transport, food, air tix, insurance.. etc."
I think ours is $2k. the others said $7k, $5k...etc

Look at the numbers.
Can you see the difference?
What makes you think that you are doing developmental work?
When you are spending most of the money on yourselves?

"How long will you be in your host country?"
2 weeks. 23days. 15days.
well. ok. Is that long enough to change the life of the community you go to?
Is that long enough to "develop" the village that you go to?

If the project is neither humanitarian nor developmental,
then what is it?

It is a youth development project.
That is what Youth Expedition Project (YEP) is about.

The YEP is an International Service-Learning Programme
that aims to develop:

1. Self confident youths who are able to work as teams
2. Youth with strong convictions about their roles and obligations towards the community
3. Youth with a strong Singaporean heartbeat and a better appreciation for our systems, policies and way of life.

We are going there and providing a service so that we can learn from them.
Learn with them.
It's not we are going there to help them.
help.. is like we are better than you.. so we go and help you. it's not equal. attitude is different. actually.. it's not one way. it's two way learning.

i give u, u give me. i take from you, u take from me. and together we then pay it forward.

and that creates a ripple effect.

What is the masterplan of the NGO or the Govt for this community?
How can we dovetail into their masterplan for the community
help to shorten the time for them to realise their masterplan?
our presence would be like a catalyst that can speed things up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What then is service learning?
It is learning outside the classroom
It is about Reflections and Reciprocity.

Reflections is about looking into your mind.
Think about what you have seen/heard/done
Why, How, What?

Reciprocity is about being sensitive and understanding.
Two way.
Learning about the other person's culture,
Respecting that culture. Learning from each other.
Overcoming barriers, seeing the differences
but also celebrating the similarities.

community service VS service learning
the idea of community service is that it is usually is one way
and we have this idea that we help others
who are less fortunate than us
who "need" help from us
usually without reflections

service learning needs participants to reflect
on what they see, hear and do
it is about youth development
it requires facilitation that actively engineers the learning component
into the process.

"Service, combined with learning adds value to each and transform both."

Timothy Stanton's Principle of Reciprocity (1992)

I serve you in order that i may learn from you.
-You accept my service in order that you may teach me.

The Experential Learning Cycle (ELC)

Experience (heart-how do you feel when you saw/heard/did that?)
Reflect (head - what was that about? Why did you feel that way?)
Conceptualise (So what do you think is happening? What is the purpose/concept?)
Active Experimentation (Now what? So you know/understand this, now what can you do about it? Are you going to take any action about it?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How do we achieve this Service-Learning?
We need leaders and facilitators.
The leaders is concerned more with the service objectives and try to achieve them
the facilitator is more concerned with the learning objectives and try to help the team achieve them.

What is a facilitator?

a learning guide
broadener of minds
a master in asking questions

The formula for facilitation

Acknowledge -acknowledge the person talking
Clarify -clarify the thoughts of the person by asking more questions
Tai-chi -get other members to answer questions raised, give ownership to learning
Summarise -summarise the reflection session

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that we know that it's a youth developmental project
and that we are using the method of service-learning,
we need to set Goals and Objectives for the project.

A goal is where you want to be.
An objective is what we do to get there.

The difference between where we are and where we want to be is what we do .
(current status) - (goal) - (objective)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jenny asked each leader+facilitator to write down the objectives for their project.
I wrote mine as
1. Cultural Exchange tru

postcard project
drama presentations
English Q&A classes
Campfire

2. Share knowledge
Education Fair (Art,Science,Health)

3. Donation

Furniture
Books
Medical Supplies

4. Establish and build connections and rapport with another village.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each team then presented their objectives and Jenny critiqued.
By comparison, I then knew that mine was incomplete.

I will post what the other teams wrote for comparison
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team1 -going to Gui Zhou, China

Objectives
1.Build bridge to provide safer route for school children
2.Engage students in Head, Heart, Hand model

Head -teach English
Heart -moral education
Hand - sports and games

3.Provide teachers with more innovative teaching resources
4.Document social issues (culture), share with sch and other voluntary welfare org.

Objectives for participants
1. Understand and appreciate cultural differences
2. Develop Independent and altruistics youths
3. Service Learning

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team 2 -going to India for vision screening
1. Conduct eye screening (300pax a day)
2. Establish links with local health authority
3. Cultural experience, working with language barrier
4. Give students a chance to plan public eye screening
5. Remind students of chosen profession.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team 3 -going to India, working with 10 Singaporeans and 5 Hearing Impaired youths

Tasks
1. Promote ecotourism in Visitor Info Centre
revamp website
teach them to make own postcards
set up internet corner to use computers donated
reorganise centre
teach photoshop software

2.Documentation of Home Stay programme in area
3.Documentation of area -social and political issues, culture

Character development
1. Instill a sense of humility in participants
2. Build confidence in HI youths
3. Sensitivity and awareness
4. Allow Singapore youths to appreciate biodiversity, culture.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team 4 -Going to India

Service Objectives
1. Enhance the capabilities of paper making unit through marketing and product design
2. Improve tourism sector of village
3. Support NGO's plan to develop the village by exploring their plans.

Learning Objectives
1. Global awareness, experience and understand another culture
2. Find out more about host community.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All the teams had different scopes. similarities and differences.
Jenny raised a few points about manageability

S - pecific
M - anageable
A - chievable
R - elevant
T - ime based

Key performance indicators. Measurable.
Whose objectives are these?
Can they be achieved?
Use of Politically correct words.
Purpose. Why are you doing this?

She then gave us 30min to redo our objectives.
and come up with the big goal.
Imagine if we are interviewed on TV and
we have 30sec to tell them about our project
what would we say?

I looked at mine and I knew I had to rephrase and put in the service learning framework
Mine's very task oriented.

I had many ideas about goals and what we REALLY want to do and CAN do and ARE doing.
i thought about my past experiences.
what was it that i really took away?

i thought about language and communication.
how two people can communicate despite language, culture barriers.
and i thought about the friends i made during the past two trips.
how i learned from them and they learned from me.
i thought what we have done
and about how to link everything together.

finally,
i talked to Jenny about my ideas.
and as I talked to her,
the ideas become clearer.

I think,
that our goal
our ONE BIG GOAL
for this project to Myanmar
is

to build friendships
through cultural and educational exchange.

it sums up everything.
everything that we want to do (postcards, skit, furniture etc)
becomes our objectives.
through all these activities we build friendship.

and it makes the status equal.
because friends are equal.
it's not about one side better than the other

friends give and take. they reciprocate the friendship.
they learn from each other.
because you are my friend, i want to give something to you.
i appreciate and treasure our friendship.
i note the differences and celebrate our similarities.

i think that people often look at the political side of Myanmar
and fail to see that the people are human beings like us.
with strengths and weakness
and a capacity to love and care.
we forget about the culture of these people.
and what friendship is really about.
sincerity and dialogue.

So this is what i came up with

Goal
To build friendships
through cultural and educational exchange

Service Objectives
1. Postcard Exchange

We get Singaporean students to write postcards to Myanmar students. We will bring the postcards to Letpabya village and the Myanmar students will receive and write a reply to the postcards. We will then send postcards back to Singapore from Yangon.

2. Friendship Fair

We would like to organise a one day Friendship Fair in the village school to:

Showcase Myanmar and Singaporean culture (Literature, Music, Dance, Drama, Food)
Showcase art works of Myanmar and Singaporeans
Enable Singaporean and Myanmar students to interact through hands on science experiments
Sharing of health information

3. Gifts for the village

Get local carpenters to build study tables for village elementary school
English and Burmese books for the school library

4. Post trip reflections and sharing of Myanmar culture in Singapore

Post trip assessment reports for the Ministry of Education of the Union of Myanmar, National Youth Council Singapore and National University of Singapore.
Work with the Ancient Civilisation Museum of Singapore to run workshops for the Singaporean public to share about Myanmar culture and promote Myanmar tourism.

5. Expand friendship circle beyond Letpanbya village

As we have been going to Letpanbya village for many years, we hope to expand our circle of friendship to other areas in Central Myanmar. Taking up the ambassador, His Excellency U Win Myint’s recommendation of possible water projects in the dry zones like Yin Thar Si, we have decided to visit Yin Thar Si village.

The whole team will first go to Letpanbya from Yangon. After we arrived in Letpanbya, five students, including myself, will go down to Yin Thar Si village. We propose to spend three days and two nights in Yin Thar Si village and then return to join the rest of our team for the actual project in Letpanbya village.

During our visit in Yin Thar Si village, we would like to speak with the village head, schoolteachers and villagers to find out more about the school, health and water distribution conditions in the village. This is to help us assess if it is feasible for us to carry out a water, health or library project in the village, based on our previous experience in Letpanbya village. We would also like to interact with the villagers to learn more about Myanmar culture and build friendship ties for our future projects.

We hope for the advice of the Ministry of Education about our proposed visit to Yin Thar Si village.

We would also like to visit another village, besides Letpabya and Yin Thar Si. This is to give us more options and ideas for our future projects.

However we do not know of which village to visit, so we hope that the Ministry of Education can give us some advice and recommend a suitable village.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand and appreciate Myanmar culture while sharing our Singapore culture.

2. Learn that friendship is possible despite language, cultural, religious and geographical differences. What matters is the heart, the willingness to understand and the want to communicate with each other.

3. Become more aware, sensitive and understanding towards others -change ourselves before we want to change others.

4. Encourage youths to reflect on what they have learnt through this project and take action for their future.

what do you think?

The Legacy.

2007-05-20T23:00:00.000+08:00

Project Letpabya (2003-2006)

Project Letpabya is an overseas community service project set up in 2003 by NVAC Overseas Service, National University of Singapore.

It is also a Youth Expedition Project (YEP) jointed initiated by the National Youth Council and Singapore International Foundation. The YEP is an international Service-Learning programme that aims to develop Singapore youths.

Comprising of students from the National University of Singapore, we have made three trips to Letpabya village in 2003, 2004 and 2006.

In 2003, we visited various free medical institutions in Yangon and met with various official figures at the Kyaukpadaung Township. In Letpanbya village, we conducted health workshops on hygiene, nutrition and first aid. We also conducted science experiments, Art and Craft workshops and soccer games with the students as well as donated medical supplies and stationery to the village hospital and school.

In 2004, we carried out a water distribution project, which involved the building of water tanks and pipes to channel water from the reservoir to water tanks that are more accessible to the whole Letpabya village. The Attorney General for Education, of the Government of the Union of Myanmar came down to oversee our project and encouraged us to continue our efforts there.

We also conducted a health education programme in the village targeted at children, mothers and teachers. This programme covered areas that were emphasised by the Government such as hygiene, nutrition and basic first aid. We also conducted educational workshops for English Language, Physics, Chemistry, Biology as well as Art and Craft. Various essential medicines were also donated.

In 2006, we set up a library in the village school. Plastic carpets were bought and bookshelves made for the library. We brought about 300 English and Burmese books from Singapore and Yangon for the library. We also taught the students and teachers how to classify and maintain the books as well as implement a borrowing and returning system for the library.