Metta In Action Update (4)

April 2011

”BECAUSE OF YOU MY LIFE’S BEEN

CHANGED…THANK YOU!!”
You’ve seen in the last three updates how your dāna has helped villagers and nuns. In this last
update about our 2011 activities, we will share a few highlights of offerings that we’ve made to
support families (and children without families) with offerings for shelter, education, and water.

Support for Orphans

As usual, we had a hard time finding the Happy Haven Humanitarian Project when we went to offer
dāna: HHHP is an orphanage for HIV-positive kids, and as such it is tucked away in an obscure
neighborhood on the remotest fringe of Yangon. Here, AIDS and HIV are still viewed as a scourge,
and those who are affected are often shunned. But not at HHHP! This is not a place that offers
simple shelter, but it’s clearly also a family. The atmosphere is beautiful—the kids are treated as
‘just kids;’ with a ton of love and care. Now there are 60 youngsters who live at HHHP, between the
ages of 2 and 15 years, and everyone gets an education and job skills so that they can support
themselves when they leave as adults. Every other day, the kids attend ‘regular’ school outside, and
are taught in classrooms at HHHP on alternate days, so that they don’t become too tired. Monks
from a local monastery also teach here, so the kids also get a Dhamma education. This year, the day
we visited happened to be an ‘outside’ day, so most of the kids were away at school, and it was very
quiet. But even so, the mettā at HHHP was obvious—the staff loves these kids! Daw Aye Aye
Myint, who was showing us around, met each child with fondness, and treated them as if they were
her own. And the day room has plenty of toys and books, and pictures of the kids on the wall—all
this being an indication that this isn’t an institution, it’s actually home to all these children.
HHHP runs with a staff of 24 (including nurse’s aides), and a
doctor who comes on a daily basis. Daw Aye Aye Myint said
that the children get the medications they need from either
Medcins Sans Frontiers or a Government hospital.

Support for Education

Again this year we were happy to be able to generously offer
to various schools and projects that provide badly needed
educational opportunities for needy children.

Kyaikasan School
Daw Yuzana’s school for nuns and poor girls opened soon
after Cyclone Nargis in 2008. As we wrote in the New Year’s
update, the number of students continues to grow and now she
says she is operating at maximum capacity. As was the case
last year we offered dāna for general operating expenses,
which are now almost 2000 US Dollars per month. We
recently heard a heartwarming story about the life of one of
the girls who has been living as a nun there for the last two years. Ma Nandacārī is the daughter of
Daw Nilar, one of the helpers at CMMC. The girl had been badly injured at her work-place in the
summer before her last year of school and because she was
under-age, the factory could get away with simply firing her—
and of course didn’t offer her any compensation for medical
expenses. She was permanently crippled (without the use of a
right hand) and depressed, and her life looked grim. But we
told her about Daw Yuzana’s nunnery and the (then) new
school, and within a week she had ordained and was
beginning to study again. This month Daw Nilar told us that
now not only is her daughter thriving as a nun, but also that
she has passed her 10th Standard examinations and is
beginning to study at higher levels. Daw Yuzana had told us in
November that this year 2 students were doing University-
level work by correspondence, and it turns out that Ma
Nandacārī is one of these. Her life has completely turned
around. There are 400 other ‘Ma Nandacārīs’ at this school,
either as day students or as resident nuns: many lives are
being saved here!

Expanding the Vision: Zaloon Parahita School…

As we’ve described before, nunneries in Myanmar do a huge
amount of defacto social service, taking in orphans and poor
girls who might otherwise be on the streets. But in spite of all
this work, no-one stops to ‘rest on their laurels’! When the
nuns see a need and find new ways to serve, if they are in a
position to do something to help, they help! Two of the
nunneries supported by Metta In Action (Zaloon Parahita and
Appamada Nunneries) have started or will be starting free
monastic schools for local children, providing even more
community service.
Last year Daw Ayesingi at the Zaloon Parahita Nunnery
started a free monastic school for all the children in her area.
At the beginning of the 2010 school year, there were 160
students attending the school; by September that number had
gone up to 220, and by January 2011, there were over 370
students. Because of the very simple infrastructure and small
space available for the school, students only attend classes for
a half-day, with one group in the morning and the rest after
noon. The curriculum and the teachers are up to the standard
of what children would be getting at a ‘regular’ school, but
there is no cost at all for attendance.

When we went to see the school in January, we were blown

away by what the nuns have accomplished with very little
infrastructure! It was a hive of activity, with 8 classrooms
under one roof, each separated from the others by a bamboo
partition (see the photo which opens this update). The older
students were learning algebra and English, and the little ones
were getting arithmetic drills, or chanting the Burmese alphabet, or learning how to tell time. Many
of the young nuns in our area attend this school, receiving a secular education to complement the
Dhamma education they get at their nunneries. At the end of the year, the school holds a prize-
giving ceremony to recognize the most outstanding students,
and we were very touched when we began to see the trophies
appearing in the nunneries we know: a first prize here or a
second prize there—clearly, many of these young nuns have
already developed a strong work ethic!
It would be understandable if Daw Ayesingi and the other
nuns at Zaloon Parahita rested during the school holidays.
But instead, they offer a course in Buddhist studies for 100
local children! They also offer lunch for the students during
this time, which is a very expensive endeavor, so we made a
second offering of meal dāna, supporting both the work of
the nuns, and the health of the local kids.

Appamada School
One of the most wonderful things about making offerings to the nuns is seeing how their good ideas
spread like viruses, and how the work of one nunnery will encourage someone else to go forward
with their ideas. These nuns have a lot of initiative, and often have definite ideas about the work
they want to do. And Metta In Action can provide
supportive conditions! In January, we were
approached by Daw Sumanacari, the abbess of
Appamada Nunnery. Some of her youngest nuns go to
school at Zaloon Parahita, and they have to walk
almost 45 minutes in each direction to get there. So
she wanted to start a similar free school, specifically
for the little ones, so they don’t have to walk all that
way in the sun (during the hot season) or through the
mud (in the rainy season). And because Metta In
Action had helped her before, she felt she could ask us
for help with start-up costs. Of course we were happy
to do this! And once we assured her that we could
help, she breathed a big sigh of relief, and later she
told us that she could now rest at night: before she’d been so worried about how to go ahead that
she hadn’t been able to sleep!

In late March, Daw Sumanacari invited us to come and see

the progress she’d made on the new buildings. When we
walked over there, the sun was just coming up, but already it
was uncomfortably hot, and we could very well imagine how
it would feel for small children to have to spend almost an
hour walking in such heat. What we saw at the nunnery was
an astonishing transformation. Before, the Appamada
Nunnery had 2 main buildings and a bamboo kitchen. Now,
the older of the two main buildings and the kitchen had been
dismantled and a large new classroom building was under
construction against the back wall of the property, using the
roofing material and much of the wood from the old building.

She intends to open the school at the start of the academic

year this June. It will be for 1st through 4th Standard only,
with 5 teachers and a capacity of 200 students. Already we
have heard that many of the youngest nuns from the
Sasanaramsi Nunnery plan to be attending this school. And
once the word gets out, many needy kids in the neighborhood will also benefit.

Shwebo School
In September of 2010, a vicious tropical storm
struck Burma. We caught the edge of it in
Yangon, but the full force hit Central Myanmar.
There was a great deal of damage and loss; the
full extent which was not widely publicized. In
December Sayadw U Indaka learned of a
school in a remote village near Shwebo that
had been completely destroyed by the force of
the storm. So he asked us if we would be
willing to consider making a donation. A
Sayadaw in Shwebo who was known to
Sayadaw U Indaka was heading up the effort to
rebuild the school. Meeting with Shwebo
Sayadaw later, we learned more details of the
situation: After the storm, over 800 kids had to study outside. As happened after Cyclone Nargis,
communities were left to fend for themselves in the wake of the storm; no official help was
forthcoming to rebuild. But Shwebo Sayadaw was doing whatever it would take to rebuild the
school. He’d managed to collect enough dāna to put up a roof, but there were no walls. After we
offered him our donation, he said that we had freed him from a great
burden and he felt cool again!

Helping Hands
Glen Morris (a Canadian teacher in a private school in Yangon) and
his team of young Burmese volunteers do a magnificent job of making
it possible for poor children to get an education. The volunteers work
‘under the wire’ to match needy kids with available schools, at no
small risk to themselves. Last school year with the help of your dāna,
the Helping Hands Project supported 1234
impoverished children either by providing
full scholarships, or by paying for supplies,
books, and uniforms. Glen told us that
technically although education is free, that’s
far from what actually is the case. Fees and
the required uniforms and supplies are
significant expenses for a poor family, and
the inability to afford these things can be
enough to keep a child from getting an
education. The emphasis of the Helping
Hands project last year was on making sure
that students in the higher grades would be
fully supported so that they would be able
to graduate. But that meant that some children had to be turned away, a heartbreaking decision for
the team to have to make. Helping Hands volunteers arranged to have all the uniforms sewn, rather
than buying ready-made ones, which more than halved the costs—maximizing number of kids who
could receive support. Glen shared some heart-warming stories that were written by the volunteers;
here is part of one of them, written by Ma Rose: “Ma Tin Tin Kyaw was included in our Helping
Hands Community Service Project. She is attending Standard Ten. There are six members in her
family, and they are so poor that Tin Tin Kyaw’s Mother couldn’t enroll her children in school
because she can’t get money even for their food. When we accepted them to join in our project she
was on cloud nine.”

And Offerings of Water…Life-Supporting Gifts!

Each January, we look forward to visiting Father Cyril
at Swe Thahar Community Development Project; his
work inspires us greatly. Using what we offered last
year, Swe Thahar built eight 5000-liter water tanks at
ECCD Schools (pre-schools) in Aung Naing, Yay Wai,
Kan Nyin Kwin, Aung Kone, Ah Su Lay Zin Ywe Gyi,
Ou Yin Khone, and Amat Kalay villages in Laputta
Township. This is where Cyclone Nargis struck the
hardest in 2008, and people are still in need of reliable
water sources. Father Cyril had photos and stories to
share with us, so that we could better understand just
how important these tanks were to the villagers. What
was most touching were the messages of thanks from
the people who received the tanks! Daw Myint Aye, a
teacher from Ou Yin Khone ECCD School wrote: “I am very happy for getting this water tank for
our school. Before we didn't have enough water for
drinking and using and had much difficulties regarding
water especially in dry season. Now, there is drinking
water for coming dry season and for use if needed for
children. We teachers had worries for water because
children are young ages and they need to be clean very
often. And we had to buy water in some days of dry
season since we don't have big tanks for storage. Now,
parents also are happy to see the tanks for their children
in school. We are lucky to get this tank. Thank you very
much for your donation!”
When we asked Father Cyril what the present water needs are in the Delta, he told us that NGOs
had been building ponds, but that these don’t work as well as water tanks if there’s flooding or
drought. So tanks are still a necessity. But they can be built quite quickly, and for a reasonable cost.
So we offered enough for 7 or 8 more tanks to be built where the need is greatest.

The Metta Clinic

We continue to offer support for the Metta
Clinic, the free medical clinic at CMMC.
Living here at the Centre, we often forget
how much it benefits the people here in the
village. But every sometimes we get a vivid
reminder that your dāna to the clinic makes
a huge difference in people’s lives, in ways
we might never know. One day, we were
walking back to CMMC after inspecting one
of the re-built houses when a middle-aged
woman ran up to us; she was very excited,
and the words were tumbling out of her
mouth faster than my limited Burmese could
catch. At first I thought she would be asking
if we could re-build her house too, but even
without being able to understand the spate of
words, I could see that her body language was very happy. It turned out that she was telling Ven.
Ariya Ñāṇī that last year her health was very bad, and she hadn’t been able to work. But she went to
the Metta Clinic, and the treatment she got worked wonders—so now she has a job again and can
support her family. She said, “Because of the clinic, my life’s been changed…THANK YOU
soooooo much!!”

Your Donations Are Life-Giving!

Isn’t it wonderful? Maybe you gave some dāna in Switzerland, in Australia, in Hawai’i, the USA,
or Ireland…somewhere very far away. And as a result, on the other side of the world someone’s life
has been turned around. Today far away, someone can feed their family because of you. Or a child
has good water to drink. Or maybe an orphan has love and a bed to sleep in tonight. And many
children are eagerly looking forward to going to school when it starts in June because of the gifts
you have offered. We couldn’t possibly know or describe all the lives your beautiful actions of
generosity touch. The merit ripples outwards out of sight!
So when we offer your dāna, we feel very privileged and grateful to be the conduits for this great
stream of goodness and compassion. It’s changed our lives, too, and we feel deeply blessed! So we
wish that you find joy in knowing of the fruits of your actions, and may your generosity be the
cause of the deepest happiness and peace! Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!!!

Vīrañāṇī
Chanmyay Myaing Meditation Centre