Four years after the military coup in 2021, the situation of the civilian population in Myanmar has continued to deteriorate. The resistance of the democratic opposition against the military has intensified further as the junta uses its aircraft relentlessly against its own population, temples, monasteries and churches. Since the beginning of 2024, food prices have tripled and the supply of food and gasoline is extremely difficult, especially in opposition-controlled areas.

The civil war has made travel in the country difficult and often even impossible, as the junta, the various ethnic groups and the so-called PDFs (People Defense Forces) secure their spheres of influence forcefully and control access points. However, with the dedicated and intrepid work of the Good Shepherd Sisters Myanmar, we have largely been able to continue our program and projects in Myanmar.

1. Leadership and Vocational Training for Girls, Mandalay

While in 2023 we were able to continue the vocational training program for girls relatively undisturbed with the help of the Good Shepherd Sisters, we experienced a dramatic change in 2024. In 2023, the junta had passed a law allowing the military to forcibly recruit both young men and women into the military. An age range of 18-35 years was set for the men and an age range of 18 to 27 years were to apply to the women. In 2024, the military, police and city authorities began to enforce recruitment for women in Mandalay, as they had already done for men in 2023. Since most of our female students fell into this age group, about two thirds of our female students left the training center in Mandalay.

The students’ parents wanted to see their daughters staying closer to home, where they could better influence their daughters’ future. As a result, many girls went home and the number of female students in our vocational training program decreased from 55 to 20.

We had started the training program with the Good Shepherd Sisters in Yangon in 2006 and continued it in Mandalay. Since we started the training in Mandalay in 2016, 391 girls have successfully participated in our 12-month training program despite coronavirus and the military coup. Now, for the first time, we witnessed a reduction in the number of participants.

In recent years, we have focused our training on sewing and tailoring education and a school education program for high school students with English and computer classes. Our school program follows the Burmese school curriculum. Teaching is done by trained teachers who felt safer with us than in the public schools under the control of the military. To prove their success at school, our students take part in the final examinations of the private high schools online and receive their certificates there. In addition to school lessons, the students receive lessons in computer skills.

In recent years, our hair styling and make-up training program has been particularly popular. Also in Class 9, 10 students started the basic course. After the basic course, another year of professional training was planned in the hairdressing salons in Mandalay.

Since 2016 the hairstyling program in Mandalay has been supported locally by the German company Schwarzkopf. In the years prior to Corona, Schwarzkopf sent volunteer hairdressers to Mandalay for a two-week hair styling course to teach our students western hair styling. Corona and the military coup prevented international hairdressers from being sent to Mandalay in the following years. Instead, the Schwarzkopf branch in Thailand supported the girls with a 2-week online course, which the Sisters unfortunately had to cancel at short notice in 2024. As too many girls had left Mandalay for home because of the threat of being drafted into the military.

2. Children Protection Center (CPC), Myit Nge

After the military coup on February 1, 2021, the security situation deteriorated throughout the whole country. Children in particular suffered, as kindergartens and schools were closed and family incomes fell drastically due to unemployment and inflation. People In Need (PIN) supported the Good Shepherd Sisters in starting and expanding the Children Protection Center (CPC) in Myit Nge. The CPC in Myit Nge is located a few kilometers south of Mandalay. In the past, almost all of the inhabitants worked there at the state railroad workshop “Myanma Train Engine Factory”.

When the military seized power, all railroad workers there went on strike in protest and joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). In turn, the military government terminated the employment contracts of all striking workers. In addition to losing their jobs and income, the workers also lost their homes.

In April 2022, the military forcibly evicted the striking workers and their families from the railroad workers’ homes in Myit Nge and systematically destroyed the workers’ homes with excavators and bulldozers. People In Need and “Wir Machen Schule” started to finance school lessons and food for the newly homeless children.

Since 2022, around 120 children have been cared for and taught daily at this Children Protection Center (CPC). The children attend school lessons, are free to play and receive lunch. In addition to the children from Myit Nge, 20 underage girls are given safe accommodation at the CPC. The girls had fled to Mandalay to escape the civil war turmoil in Shan State and were living in the slums with no income.

In order to better understand the living conditions of the families and the children, the Sisters have increased their home visits to families and household communities in the surrounding villages. This enables the Sisters to identify children in need and also help impoverished families.

3. Community-based Learning Program (CbLP), Mandalay

In 2024, the Good Shepherd Sisters ended the informal teaching program in the slums of Mandalay, which People In Need and “Wir Machen Schule” had been supporting since 2021. At that time, all schools were closed due to Corona. The Good Shepherd Sisters, together with parents, teachers and community leaders, had initiated an informal school education program in private homes. The sisters continued this program in 2023 after the reopening of public schools in three slums and later in two slums. A total of 90 and 60 children were taught by trained teachers.

4. Help for Families Affected by Flooding and War

In September 2024, Typhoon Yagi devastated China and Vietnam. The typhoon also flooded large parts of neighboring Myanmar. As the rice fields in Kayah State were flooded for weeks by the rain and additional water masses from the overflowing MoBye dam the rice harvest was completely destroyed. The intense armed conflict on the border with Shan State made the situation even worse, as transportation, communication and travel became even more difficult. As a result, food prices and the cost of living exploded.

The food shortage worsened the humanitarian situation, especially for the civilian population displaced from their villages by the ongoing military bombardments. People In Need responded to the Good Shepherd Sisters’ appeal for help and donated emergency aid for the 521 families most in need. The Sisters (a team of 5 nuns) managed to complete the distribution of aid within less than two months, despite ongoing travel and communication restrictions.

First, the sisters had to collect family data from community and camp leaders and in a second step had to verify the data through visiting the families in their temporary homes. In refugee camps the distribution could be carried out at agreed meeting points, while families in far-away locations had to be visited individually.

The cash support helped the families to survive for another month. However, the needs of the recipients were very different. For many, the cash helped them to buy rice and food, other families needed the money for medicine, school fees for the children or similar things.

At the start of 2025, we continued our aid for the suffering families by donating 25 tons of rice.

5. Hla Day: Shop for Design and crafts, Yangon

Hla Day was founded in 2016 by Ulla Kroeber with the support of Gerhard Baumgard as a non-profit organization in Yangon. The store started selling Burmese handicraft products to tourists and expats. The proceeds of the store were to support the livelihood of destitute and socially disadvantaged artisans and their families.

However, Corona and the subsequent military coup brought the international tourism to Myanmar to a complete standstill and the number of expats living in Myanmar fell dramatically. As a consequence, Hla Day’s income collapsed. Only in 2023 and 2024, Hla Day was able to generate a small profit again.

We will do everything we can to keep Hla Day alive. Since the military coup four years ago, Hla Day has become a beacon of hope for the small remaining foreign community. Hla Day is also an important and often the only source of income for our Burmese staff and artisans.

 

People In Need – Gerhard Baumgard Stiftung, March 2025
www.peopleinneed.de | www.p-i-n.org

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After we had written our 2024 Annual Report, we were shocked by the news of a very severe earthquake in the regions of Sagaing, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw in the early afternoon of March 28, 2025 (local time Myanmar).

Our projects in Mandalay are all affected to a greater or lesser extent, the buildings are largely uninhabitable. Fortunately, we have no victims to lament. At the beginning of April 2025, we transferred the first donations to the earthquake area. We made sure that all our aid reached the earthquake victims and was not intercepted by the military and utilized by the junta.