myME educational project Myanmar

Joss Stone Foundation ambassadors Rhiannon and Ali visited the myME education project in August 2017 to follow up after Joss visited during the Total World Tour. MyME education believe that every child in Myanmar has the right to access education, no matter their circumstances as education is the key to alleviating poverty and the abuses associated with child labour.

Launched in January of 2014, the myME project is a unique, non-formal education and outreach program that provides school and assistance to children who have been compelled into servitude, by bringing the classroom to them directly where they work (and live). For many families in Myanmar, sending children to work is an undesired necessity.  Starting with just 60 children in 2 teashops in early 2014, in just four years, myME had already expanded to serve more than 3,000 students annually from various teashops, road-side restaurants, monastic schools, and underprivileged communities in Yangon, Mandalay, Mawlamying,
Myingyan, Kyauk-Se, Dala, East Dagon, and Hlaing Thar Yar townships with over 60 staff and 5 mobile classroom buses. 

Throughout the past years, and following the covid pandemic, myME has continued to bring a blend of face to face and virtual learning to increasing numbers of children all across Myanmar. Joss wanted to support the work of myME by providing specialist support and teacher training for staff to enable them to support children’s education and emotional needs in the best way possible. Donations to the foundation enabled Joss to send 2 education specialists to work with staff at myME. Rhiannon and Ali, who both have extensive experience in working within trauma informed practise and approaches to education, spent a number of days training myME staff in ways to utilise and embed attachment and trauma-based techniques into their planning and daily practise.

For more information on myME and the work they do, please go to www.mymeproject.org/