For many years, the Exodus family had been holding informal classes for underprivileged children after school and on weekends. When Cyclone Nargis hit in May, 2008, over 100 people came to their house for emergency shelter. After one week most of them were moved to another place. But in that group were five girls who had been studying at our home for some time. After Nargis, they came to live with us permanently and we named our residence the Swechinmae Girls Home. As more and more people came to know about the care which we were providing for the girls, the numbers began to grow and by 2012 the number of resident children had increased from 5 to 23 (19 girls & 4 boys). We changed our name from Swechinmae Girls Home to Swechinmae Development Home. Because some of these children came from remote villages, they often stayed with us to continue their education. Our care covered their total development needs; including primary through secondary education expenses and even helping the older ones find jobs. Often this involved a lot of work trying to piece together their histories in order to secure important documents (labor card, health screening, ID, etc.). In the 2010-11 academic years, all of the children passed their exams. In October 2010 we started the Swechinmae Development Pre-school (kindergarten) at the Swechinmae Development Home. The numbers of children have varied from 4 to 20 as they move on to the government school. We have 2 full time pre-school teachers. The children are provided with a certificate which sometimes results in a discount on their school registration fees. The parents are very happy. All the children are good in health and spirit. They can go to school and study well. We generated income by raising and selling 9 pigs and 2 goats, bottling and selling natural grape wine, producing a CD for sale, making and selling hand crafted items such as purses, phone bags, and jewelry.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:55:21 +0000
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