|
| DJ Condon talks to students from a school in Pyay, Myanmar. |
|
Contributions made to the 'Peace by Piece' art installation during the holiday season at the Safety Harbor home of Kiaralinda and Todd Ramquist were used directly to assist schools in Myanmar. The quotes below are from emails from DJ and Catherine Condon.
“We’ve been to two schools now, one in Pyay (about six hours north of Yangon on the Irrawaddy River) and one outside Bago (about two hours from Yangon), both run by monasteries. At each school we made fairly substantial donations that were very well received.
“In Pyay we gave each kid in the school, 64 in all, a year’s worth of exercise books, pencils, pens, erasers, a ruler and a book to keep. We also gave the school a cassette player, extra batteries, picture books from the States accompanied by tapes Catherine made reading the story so they can listen and follow along later on their own. We also gave them a cash donation. We were in Pyay with our 6th graders so we also played a bunch of games with them.
“We went to Bago with two Burmese guys from our school, U Win and Yazar. There we had a very special time with the monastery’s two abbots. After a lot of discussion and touring around, we settled on a long term plan by which six local village kids will be completely sponsored through middle school and high school. We also paid for a roof to be put on new building, established a medical fund for the village kids, and gave some nice personal items to the three teachers. We’ll be doing more with that school over the next few months…
“I think we’ll probably get involved with at least one more monastery school. U Win has one in mind that is about three hours outside Yangon and really needs help.
“…we drove up to Bago which is about an hour north of here to a school that U Win has been working with for the past year. The school is on the monastery grounds and services the village children. It has 68 students from K to grade 4 and three teachers, although they are getting an aide for the next school year. She is a graduate of that school who went on to high school in the town.
|
|
Posters for the schools.
|
 |
| Students maintain a garden next to their school building on the grounds of a monastery. |
|
“Such a chore to get to high school.... first you have to have the money to pay for the fees and the books and the uniforms and the transportation. Since none of them have money for transportation, they have to walk the 5-10 miles — no joke — to get there. I feel like I am listening to stories that my father told about himself getting to school. The money really goes a long way. You can buy loads of books, pencils, pens etc.”
|
Front Page 
Images / Video 
