Goducate has been teaching in a village about one and a half hour’s drive north of Yangon, Myanmar, where the need for such help is great because the children there are unable to go to school. Their parents wake up before sunrise, to work carrying rocks from boats to shore. Finishing at about 5pm, they stagger home to cook and have dinner before soon going to bed to wake early again for the next day’s work. The parents cannot afford the time and money to send their children to school. The children play during the day, casually looked after by a few old grandparents and mothers who are too exhausted to work that day. They eat food prepared early by their mothers or perhaps even leftovers from the previous evening’s dinner.
The children look forward to anything that breaks their daily routine. Thus a very ready audience of about 50 children and their mothers gather within 20 minutes around Goducate’s two workers from Yangon whenever they visit, often unannounced. For our workers, it is a tiring 7 hours round trip by public transport from their home for each visit. But, it is a worthwhile endeavor, for I could see when I was there a couple of weeks ago, how keen the children were to learn. It is not only the children but also the adults who look forward to these simple short visits. The classes are held in the front yard of a kind farmer, who also allows the use of his small bamboo house when weather is bad.
Our two workers intend to provide more regular teaching sessions for the children in the village.
