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At 10 years old, Thant (pictured above) faced a decision that no Grade 5 student should have to make.

He had to decide whether he wanted to stay in a school where he was routinely caned for falling behind or drop out and find a job to help his struggling parents support his three siblings.

“I always got punished so I started skipping school,” says Thant, now 20.

“Later on the punishment from the teacher became worse and one of my legs was badly hurt. My mum felt sorry for my injury, and I also didn’t want to go to school anymore so she took me out of school.”

Failure to finish school is a major problem in Myanmar, especially among children like Thant, whose parents did not finish school.

After dropping out of school he spent two years in the workforce before finding out about a program through ChildFund Myanmar partner Shwe Chin Thae Social Service Group (SSSG), which helps out-of-school youth to return to education.

“I decided to study again because I believed I would not get corporal punishment at the centre and I would be happy,” Thant says.

He enrolled in Non-Formal Education (NFE) classes at a child development centre, where he learned Burmese, English, maths, poetry, sports and vocational skills.

After excelling in the course, ChildFund Myanmar awarded him a scholarship to do a one-year course at the TheikKhar Myanmar Institute.

The course was difficult at first, but Thant soon discovered a passion for learning.

“My favourite classes were English and environmental science,” Thant says.

After completing the course he did a three-month internship teaching children in Rakhine state, where he used his school experience to ensure his students enjoyed theirs.

“I just wanted to make the children happy,” he says. “I didn’t use the cane to teach them because I was once in their situation and I know how it feels.”

Thant now has an administrative job at TheikKhar Myanmar Institute and hopes one day he can start an organisation to protect Myanmar’s environment.

Having seen the impact education made on his life, Thant is passionate about giving children in Myanmar the opportunity to stay in school.

“I feel very sad when I see children who can’t study,” he says. “They might also want to go to school. They might want to be able to read and write. They might want to be successful.

“I wouldn’t be where I am right now at all if I hadn’t studied.”

ChildFund Myanmar’s education programs are supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).

Nhung recalls the constant struggle of trying to raise a family-of-six on a small farm with an unreliable water source.

“We could grow only one rice crop per year on half of the land while the other half was used to grow soy bean or maize as we did not have any water,” she says. “Everything depends much on the conditions in the area.”

Nhung says it was a constant struggle to provide enough money to send her two oldest children to school.

“I do not remember a time we had any money left over and each time my oldest baby got sick the whole family had to ask for help from friends and relatives,” she says.

Things got better when they participated in farming models supported by ChildFund and the local government.

“Households in the villages now combine all the land we have in one area and by doing that we have more resources,” she says. “ChildFund supported us by building four concrete canals which provide enough water for the whole fields to grow two crops per year. Not only our family but many other families are still benefiting from these canals.”

Over the years, Nhung and her husband have expanded their farm and used savings to invest in a harvesting business that services local farms.

“We make use of the rice and corn powder from our harvesting services to raise chickens and pigs in the backyard,” Nhung says. “They provide not only food for my children but also extra income for the surrounding families. I am so happy that we saw the opportunities and decided to invest in this business.”

A keen learner, Nhung also studied modern farming techniques to improve her land’s productivity.

“We used to use a lot of fertiliser in our farming but now, but we have used more efficient techniques to cut down the amount of fertiliser we use. Also, working with agriculture staff taught us about new seeds which have proved successful.”

The 3.5km canal provides water for 86 hectares of farmland, benefiting more than 500 households.

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