South-East Asia

News from Sunshine School, Laos

Our primary and secondary schools were unseasonally closed during November and December 2009 due to the SE Asian Games event in Vientiane. This provided a perfect opportunity for our landlord to pull down the old buildings in the middle of the school yard and construct four new classrooms and a toilet block next to the two-storey secondary school building. Now we have a huge playground space in the middle of the school, though there are plans later this year to construct another few rooms along the back and front walls of the school. 


New one story room complex viewed from upper floor of secondary building


Grade 4 kids happy in their new classroom wearing the new sports uniform

Using much of the wood and roofing from the old buildings we were also
able to construct a toilet and bathroom block and a staff house on our
Don Koi land. With these facilities in place we hope in the near future
to be able to bus the junior high school children to the land for sports
activities.


Staff house and toilets behind at Don Koi land
 
We took the opportunity during the November break to send some
of our teachers for study tours and training. Six teachers spent three days
at Amartyakul School in Bangkok. During their stay there they were
treated to a trip to the sea.


A visit to the sea during teachers' training in Bangkok
 
Amartyakul is a big 'family' school with 1600 students which also tries
to implement Neo-humanist principles of education. Upon returning the
group held a two day workshop with the other teachers about their
experiences and approaches that we can also implement in our school.
 
Our teachers especially appreciated the family feeling among the staff
of the school, the fact that a kindergarten teacher might be asked to fill
in for a secondary school teacher and vice versa and that they would have
enough skills to deal with the respective situations, the daily practice of
kaoshiki (a rhythmic yoga dance) and meditation by everyone and also
weekly yoga sessions for staff and parents and older students. Parents
of Amartykul can also purchase organic produce from the school's farm.
 
During November Krpa (our kindergarten English teacher from the
Philippines) and Didi Nityaprema attended a one month sponsored TEFL
(Teaching English as a Foreign Language) training. The sponsorship was
organised by a TEFL volunteer coordinator who had been to visit our school
earlier in the year.
 
The director of Vientiane College has generously offered places to four
of our staff to study English at sponsored rates. This is a great opportunity
for our staff to improve their English skills which they can then use to
help raise the general standard of English at our school.  We hope that
this arrangement can be continued and that other staff members will have
this same opportunity in the coming years.
 
Volunteers

We've had a few volunteers since the new term started in January. Marlou and Fran from Holland who helped us with English classes and creative activities, David from Australia who's helping with art and English, and Janet from England who's helping us with the secondary English classes. We also had visits from our old volunteers - Lau and also Caroline from Holland and Youjoung from Korea (now studying in Australia).
 
Special Events

Nut and her new bicycle
 
From the sales proceeds of some of our farm-grown organic papayas
we were able to donate a new bicycle for one of the high school students
in Veuntaen village where our farm is situated. Nut can now make the
4 km ride to school each day without problems.
 
Some of our friends who had heard about the bicycle donation were
inspired to also donate and we have raised another AUS$300 with which
we can purchase 3 more bicycles. We are in the process of discussing
with the heads of Veuntaen and Somsemai villages to select the most
worthy and needy candidates.
 
We were also able to donate a water cooler to Veuntaen primary school
to help teachers and students to quench their dry, dusty throats during
the upcoming hot season.


Water cooler donation to Veuntaen primary school

Farm development


Phoutsavanh and Bee with our organic papayas. Very sweet!
 
The farm continues to produce plenty of papayas which we bring to
school twice a week. We have also harvested bananas, peanuts and
sweet potatoes, cabbages, soya beans and black beans during this season.
 
The trees that were planted by the school students last May are all
doing well and we are preparing papaya seedlings which will be planted
and harvested for a few years in-between the growing larger trees.
 
We had harvested a total of two tons of two varieties of rice from our two
fields. That amount should last us a few months at school.
 
The river slopes of our farm 'island' where terraced and planted with
a type of thatch grass that has strong resilient root systems and that
survives the rising waters during the rainy season.
 
The 'island' activities area grey water drainage system was put in to
place with a simple filtering system through a tank of gravel and charcoal
and then through a second tankof sand in which water-loving plants
have been placed.

Philippines

Typhoon Ondoy battered Manila in November, killing hundreds and displacing an estimated 2 million people, the majority of them losing their homes due to flooding. AMURT/EL relief operation teams set up free kitchens, serving the worst-affected communities in the area: 12,000 flood victims in three areas of Metro Manila, including Marikina, Quezon City and two outlying provinces of Laguna and Montalban in the first week after the typhoon hit. AMURT emergency rescue teams also brought flood victims to safe evacuation centers.



Other news:

The AM Wellness center in Cebu continues to expand, giving naturopathic treatment and education.

Ananda Marga has recently purchased land for new centers in Hanoi, Vietnam and Cambodia.

AMURT distributed food packets, blankets and cooking oil to 140 cyclone victims of two villages in Danang District of Vietnam, and provided vaccination for Polio, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, DTP and MMR to 296 pregnant women and 1,776 children, covering 23 villages in Burma in the border area with Thailand.

German charity Kindernothilfe (KNH) approved 60,000 euros for food and non-food distribution for the AMURT relief operation in Padanga, Indonesia, along with three children centers. Rice, noodles, cooking oil , tarpaulins, tents and medicine were distributed in three districts. 350 children participated in children’s programs where toys, balls, badminton kits and other playing kits were distributed.

Download the Myanmar Cyclone Nargis Response progress report

In Myanmar we have been looking into "child-friendly spaces" which will provide shelter for kids from 3-6 years through playgroup therapy, trauma healing and supplementary feeding programs.

These CFSs will be operated by local Myanmar organizations that have qualified staff and experience in child protection. Assessments have been made in several locations and MoUs will be signed with the various communities in which they are located. We hope that four to six CFSs will be up and running within the next 10 days.

Temporary schools: AMURT met with UNICEF last week and showed them the temporary school concepts developed from AMURT’s work in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The chairperson of UNICEF proposed that AMURT sponsor 20 temporary schools (with our own funds) while UNICEF will provide funding for another 30 temporary schools with AMURT as the implementing partner. We are now finalizing the details of this agreement.

Integrated development: The German charity Kindernothilfe (KNH) wants to start another pilot project with AMURT in Myanmar to rehabilitate a whole area consisting of several villages of one district and take care of aspects such as food and non-food-items, housing/reconstruction programs, water and sanitation programs, education programs, livelihood programs and infrastructure.

With so many things ongoing and future possibilities ahead, we are hopeful that we will be able to do a lot of good work in Myanmar.