Learning exchange leads to successful Myanmar funding bid
26 November 2008
Earlier this year, an Alliance secretariat-funded horizontal learning exchange enabled staff from Alliance Myanmar to visit successful children’s programmes set up by the Alliance in India. The knowledge and experience from the exchange has now led to a successful funding bid in Myanmar.
In April 2008, four members of staff from the Alliance in Myanmar and their partners took part in a learning exchange visit to a successful community-based children’s programme in India that has been functioning for many years. The Alliance in Myanmar has relatively less experience with programming for orphans and vulnerable children, and there are few well developed children’s programmes in Myanmar to draw from.
"The exchange has been useful in many ways,” says Nang Mo Kham, senior programme officer for care and support at the Alliance in Myanmar. “It has opened up and broadened our understanding on issues specific to orphans and vulnerable children, and has given us some direction for future children’s programming. Through this visit, we have identified the areas for capacity building (for both the Alliance in Myanmar and its partners) and the need to have relevant tools developed and adapted to the local context.
“More importantly, the experience in India has driven home the significance of mobilising existing community structures and the involvement of community people, as well as the role of government (and its schemes) in addressing children’s issues, as the needs of children are unique in terms of scale, duration and approach."
One of the important lessons the participants have taken away with them, is the emphasis on using what is already there, for instance integrating programmes for orphans and vulnerable children into existing home-based care programmes, or making existing activities more child-friendly.
The partners of the Alliance in Myanmar involved in the exchange have now successfully applied some of this learning to their work. One partner has mobilised child support groups in the communities in which they work and have begun to think beyond material support (such as nutrition and education) to include a psychosocial component. Another partner of the Alliance in Myanmar has started a small day-care centre for children from families of positive widows so that the women can earn an income without worrying about their children.
The new project for orphans and vulnerable children funded by the EU was the successful culmination of a year’s investment in developing skills and strategies for working with children in Myanmar. The learning exchange with the Alliance in India was one of these strategies. Read more about Alliance Myanmar’s new project with orphans and vulnerable children.
