Boarding House for Girls, Mandalay

The Burmese education system is under-developed and students in rural areas have difficulties to find high-schools close to their home villages. As a consequence, many students are forced to attend high-schools in the bigger cities and stay away from home in boarding houses. Of course, girls are most vulnerable and the female students have difficulties to find a safe boarding house for the years of high-school study.

In Mandalay, the second biggest city in Myanmar, the demand for accommodation is exceptionally high. Here the Good Shepherd Sisters operated a boarding house for 20 girls since 2004. As the Sisters take an active role in education, supervise learning and homework, and organize tuition classes the success rate in the final exams is high and the waiting list of new boarders is long.

In 2011, PIN agreed to jointly finance with the Thai Province of the Good Shepherd Sisters an extension of the existing boarding house. By building a second floor on top of the one-story boarding house the capacity of the house could be doubled from 20 girls to 40 girls. The extension was finished within the 2-months school holidays and 40 girls could move into the bigger boarding house at the start of the new school year in June 2011.