New Hope Children's Home

Posted by P on 14 July 2011

New Hope Children's Home

New Hope Children's Home is situated in the mountains of Chin State, Burma. We have supported this home since 2009 and currently, there are sixteen children living there along with the director and his family.

Recently, work was completed to provide the home with it's own reliable fresh water source, as they had previously been using a small stream that usually dries up during the hot season. Permission was gained from the authorities to connect into the town's supply, so a pipeline was connected and routed to a new concrete holding tank on their land. Now they can enjoy a constant supply all year round.

Concrete Holding Tank

The children all attend school in the town, and there are some who are exceptionally bright. As is usually the case, when given access to education most children in the homes that we support do very well, but sadly only to a point. Government schools do not pay the teachers a good enough salary, so to supplement their meagre income their desire is to privately tutor children outside of school hours. Considering that admission fees, uniform and text and exercise books all have to be paid for (multiplied by sixteen in this case), finding even more for extra tuition is impossible. Another down-side to this, in some schools, is that those children whose parents or carers do not stump up more money are sometimes beaten because of low marks gained in tests and exams. This is because only the privately-tutored are taught the things that the tests and exams are about!

Very few children of a poor background are educated to a standard good enough to pass the matriculation exams neccesary to gain entrance to colleges and universties (yes, these institutions exisit in Burma). Myo Tin, one of the brightest has been admitted to a boarding school in another town at the cost of around £200 per year. This child will excel in the right environment, and with all the information needed to pass, he has a great opportunity to break the cycle of poverty that a lack of education often brings.

If you would like to donate to our Education Fund, you can do so here

New Hope children in their new school uniforms (complete with umbrellas, rainy season imminent!)