Mingalar Parahita

Loca­tion:               Phayagyi Vil­lage, Twante Town­ship, Near Yan­gon, Myanmar

Key dates:             Com­menced March 2006;  Project work still ongoing

Local part­ners:      Super­vi­sion Com­mit­tee of Parahita Orphanage

Project back­ground: This was by far the most impov­er­ished of the orphan­ages we had worked with to date.  The liv­ing con­di­tions of the chil­dren were extremely basic and hygiene was poor.  The Super­vi­sion Com­mit­tee of the Orphan­age expressed con­cern that the chil­dren were poten­tial tar­gets for local “Snake­heads”, the noto­ri­ous gangs of child kid­nap­pers and traf­fick­ers.  We had an almost blank can­vas for our work here, but it was clear to us that, by tak­ing a strate­gic view, we had the poten­tial to con­tribute to a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in the health and safety of the children.  

Main activ­i­ties:  There have been three main phases to our work here — an ini­tial project which ren­o­vated and upgraded the liv­ing quar­ters, a sec­ond major project which resulted, for the first time ever, in fresh, potable water being pro­vided through­out the orphan­age, and most recently a series of voca­tional train­ing projects, designed to give the older chil­dren new occu­pa­tional skills.  Our work at this project site illus­trates well the stepped approach we adopt, and how our “build­ing blocks of hope” can come together to cre­ate a sus­tain­able improve­ment in the liv­ing con­di­tions and life oppor­tu­ni­ties of the children.

Sta­tus of project:  Ongo­ing.  The chil­dren are now housed in com­fort­able, secure dor­mi­to­ries with potable water piped through­out the orphan­age site. There has been a pal­pa­ble improve­ment in the mood and well-being of the chil­dren.  Our voca­tional train­ing projects have been a huge suc­cess, not just in encour­ag­ing the res­i­dents to acquire new skills, but in actu­ally gen­er­at­ing sus­tain­able income for the orphan­age, through sales of goods pro­duced in our project work­shops and gar­dens. We are now in the process of tran­si­tion­ing the projects to full local man­age­ment, and plan­ning our phased with­drawal from this site, where we feel our strate­gic devl­op­ment work is largely complete.

When we first dis­cov­ered Min­galar Parahita, the children’s dor­mi­to­ries were delap­i­dated, and the toi­lets and wash­ing areas were unhygienic.

   

We worked with local archi­tects and builders to upgrade the dorms.

 

The only source of water was a shal­low well, from which water was pumped man­u­ally into portable con­tain­ers and car­ried to var­i­ous points in the orphan­age compound.

A key “build­ing block” at this orphan­age was our project to dig a deep well, with diesel-fuelled pumps car­ry­ing the water to alu­minium header tanks, and on from there through cop­per pipes to each of the dorms and other build­ings.  This now means that fresh, potable water is on-tap for the chil­dren, 24 hours a day.

 

Two of the voca­tional train­ing ini­tia­tives now spon­sored by The Man­dalay Projects are a hor­ti­cul­ture project/market gar­den (pro­vid­ing veg­eta­bles for the orphan­age kitchen and other plants for sale in the local mar­kets) and a tai­lor­ing work­shop (now pro­duc­ing clothes for the res­i­dents, plus school uni­forms and other gar­ments, again for sale in the local mar­kets).  These projects are cre­at­ing work for the older res­i­dents of the orphan­age, giv­ing them valu­able voca­tional skills and mak­ing them more inde­pen­dent.  The sus­tain­able income being gen­er­ated for the orphan­age is an added bonus.