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Drought? Pandemic? Flooding? There is a lot to be said for a development model (i.e., solution to poverty) that can succeed under difficult, even disastrous, conditions. Given that disasters like this are even more destructive in less developed countries where infrastructure is lacking or primitive, it is essential that any effective development model be able [...]
Over the course of a 6-year partnership with Shanta, villages create committees to manage the different projects and areas of interest they have chosen. This might be an education committee to increase school supplies or improve teacher housing, an infrastructure committee to build roads or bridges, and so on. A Village Development Team (VDT) is [...]
Years ago, I was talking to a potential donor about a development project in Latin America. Before I could get a full sentence out, this person interrupted me and blurted out, “I won’t support what you are doing because all of Latin America is corrupt.” As you can imagine, I was taken aback by that [...]
Nang Thein Oat grew up in Pin Laung Township in Southern Shan State. She went to school through 10th grade but struggled to pass her state exams. Her family could not afford to continue her education. She was very discouraged. “As I haven’t passed high school, I thought that I do not have any opportunity [...]
This has been a very volatile time for Shanta Foundation’s partner villages and Myanmar staff. We have learned that the most important thing is to keep showing up. That doesn't mean that we show up physically when there is danger from firefights between the government and resistance soldiers, but that we continue to stay connected [...]
Nang Ohn Kyi has humble roots and big dreams. She comes from a poor village where her family subsists on growing cheroot, wheat, and tea leaves. Nang Ohn Kyi is the first in her family to attend high school. Because of the support of scholarships from Shanta Foundation, she graduated from University in 2018. She [...]
Choosing villages to partner with is a weighty decision made each year by our fantastic staff in Myanmar. Partnering with Shanta requires more than just picking villages that seem to have the most need, as we must also consider the likelihood of success. When our staff visit communities across Magwe and Southern Shan States looking [...]
Thingyan is the most significant annual festival on the Myanmar calendar. Held over several days, it marks the end of the hot, dry season and the start of the New Year: the beginning of the Myanmar lunar calendar and celebrates life and rebirth. Water Festival The Burmese douse one another in water in the belief [...]
Shanta Foundation addresses inequalities in rural Myanmar by empowering villages to assess their own needs and fund their own solutions. Community banks, transparent committees, and training in new income-producing activities provide dignity and a path out of poverty for villages that have been stripped of so much. It has been over a month since the [...]
Transformative Capacity Transformative capacity means having the ability to affect systemic change or create a positive enabling environment for people to work together to invest and innovate while actively managing risks. If village flooding is made worse because of upstream conditions outside of the villagers’ control, transformative capacity can be realized if they are able to get the government and other stakeholders to act to [...]
