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We are still here! Let us send you tips for travelling through Myanmar and stories from the road …
And we are not the only ones.
Below we list a handful of other companies and organisations that like Sampan are working to preserve heritage and support community development, whether it be environmentally, economically or socially. Their work is more important now than ever.
They are green heroes.
In the centre of Dala weary travellers can revive themselves at the Chu Chu café, attached to the Chu Chu workshop where Wendy and her young team convert plastic waste into purses, pencil cases and retro jewellery.
For a while Sampan has been taking over our plastic waste from the office to give to Wendy and her team. In turn, we then pick up little wallets that they have created out of the waste plastic and give these as presents to our guest. Recycling at its most pure.
In August 2022 a fire burnt down the entirety of Wendy’s workshop. Thankfully there were no serious injuries. But it was heart breaking to see so much hard work and passion literally go up in smoke. There are ways to support Wendy and the team. Sampan will continue to place orders with Chu Chu. Others such as Hla Day have made similar pledges. More information and a direct way to donate can be found here.
The Darjeeling Children’s Trust is a small UK registered charity founded in 2008. The DCT undertakes a variety of projects aimed at improving the quality of life and opportunities for children in the Darjeeling area. Their key activities encompass educational support, vocational training and medical camps.
The DCT provides scholarships to children from low-income families, enabling them to attend school and pursue higher education. Additionally, the Trust offers vocational training programmes to help young people acquire skills that can lead to employment opportunities, such as tailoring, computer skills and hospitality training.
The DCT’s young, dedicated team in Darjeeling undertake amazing work: overseeing the projects and focusing on continually improving the opportunities for education and the welfare of children and young people in Darjeeling. Watch a video about the DCT’s Children’s Home here.
Our Goecha La Trail is in support of the Darjeeling Children’s Trust.
Founded in 1969, The Gurkha Welfare Trust provides vital financial medical and hardship support to Gurkha veterans, their widows and their families, and delivers development and community aid to deprived communities.
Through their development and community aid programmes, the Gurkha Welfare Trust rebuilds schools, runs medical camps in remote districts and pipes-in fresh, clean water to villages. Their schools programme is one of their longest running, benefitting over 40,000 children last year alone. All construction projects are designed and built to earthquake resilient standards. They also have 30 years of development expertise in rural water and sanitation projects in Nepal and are currently rated as A+ by the UK Development Tracker, which measures the impact and sustainability of development projects.
Sampan is a corporate partner of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and our Beyond the Chindwin WW2 of Burma is in direct support of their projects in the Darjeeling area.
Help 4 Forgotten Allies (H4FA) is focused on supporting widows and veterans from the Second World War who fought alongside the British, as well as on humanitarian work with increasing numbers of refugees and IDPs from the Kayin (Karen), Chin and Kayah (Karenni) ethnic groups.
The numbers of remaining veterans and widows are dwindling rapidly and so the charity is in a process of transition, focussing increasingly on educational needs within these areas, seeing this as a lasting legacy and memorial to honour those who have served faithfully in years past. You can a video about their school project on the Indian border with Myanmar here.
In 2017, the film makers Grammar Productions joined H4FA in Myanmar, as three of the charity`s trustees travelled to meet some of the veterans: to deliver aid and ensure them that they had not been forgotten. Sampan supported Grammar Productions operationally on the ground. You can watch a trailer of the documentary here.
In 2022, Sampan’s CEO Bertie Alexander, was appointed a trustee of Help 4 Forgotten Allies. Read more about the charity and their work here.
Kohima, a town set high among jungle-covered hills in Nagaland in North East India, was the site of an epic battle in WW2. The town was completely destroyed, but this did not prevent the local inhabitants from supporting the British and Indian troops. Without the help of the Naga people, it is doubtful if the battle could have been won.
The Kohima Educational Trust (KET) was founded 60 years later by veterans of the battle as a debt of honour to the Nagas in order to provide educational assistance to the young people of today, many of them descendants of those who had so ably assisted the British and Indian forces.
In collaboration with the Kohima Educational Society (KES), a charity formed in response to the formation of the Kohima Educational Trust, many projects have been achieved, principally the making of several hundred scholarships awarded over the years.
Our 39 Hours to Kohima expedition is in support of the Kohima Educational Trust & Society.
Medical Action Myanmar (MAM) is a medical aid organization whose mission is to improve access to quality health care for the poorest Myanmar people. MAM has set up a network of clinics where basic health care is provided and preventative education offered.
In addition to basic health care, MAM facilitates condom and needle distribution, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer screening and counselling. To further prevent the spread of HIV, MAM treats pregnant HIV+ women in order to keep the disease away from their unborn babies.
MAM also supports a network of 1,700 Community Health Workers to provide health care in the most remote villages of Kachin, Kayin, Chin and Mon States as well as Sagaing Region and the Naga Self-Administered Zone.
See here for more information: https://www.mam.org.mm/
“There is no reason for the daughter of a woman in prostitution to assume that it is the only opportunity open to her.”
New Light operates within Kolkata’s red-light district, supporting the children of sex workers. The charity was set up in 2000 by Urmi Basu. Urmi says:
“On a global scale, the problem of prostitution is so complex and huge that I would be completely overwhelmed if I think about it. I choose to reduce the aperture of my vision and concentrate my energy only on things that I can do.”
New Light’s flagship creches and residential programmes, provide a haven for children of sex workers and survivors of abuse, offering shelter, healthcare, education and counselling. This support helps children break free from systemic poverty and intergenerational sex work while fostering leadership and independence among.
More information and a direct way to donate can be found here: www.newlightindia.org
Sampan’s Death on the Brahmaputra journey is in support of New Light.
Pann Nann Ein is an organization situated in the township of Dala, just over the Yangon River from Myanmar’s commercial capital.
The enterprise works with disabled people, training them to create ornate handicrafts that riff off traditional Myanmar aesthetics and are marketed towards foreign visitors to Myanmar. Pann Nann Ein aims to not just create beautiful products – which they do – but allow their members to feel autonomy and worth; things that they are often denied.
In Myanmar society, it is common to regard disabled people as helpless and look at them with nothing but pity. Pann Nan Ein battles these false assumptions.
You can watch a video we made of Pann Nann Ein here.
Plan Bee is a social enterprise introducing advanced beekeeper training in the nectar-rich regions of southern Shan and Kayah states. Through honey, their intention is to empower and improve the livelihoods, nutrition and food security for thousands of vulnerable people.
Plan Bee has already trained more than 150 beekeepers and is providing them with the necessary training and support to become successful in their new businesses.
The honey produced by the Plan Bee keepers is 100 per cent pure and free from antibiotics and pesticides. Plan Bee promotes an awareness of the importance of bee colonies and pollination in the face of the harmful effects of modern agriculture.
Additionally, Plan Bee supports their beekeepers to develop bee-related micro enterprises and disseminate their produce throughout the country.
Plan Bee products can be found throughout Myanmar and they have an education centre in Pindaya where visitors can learn about the bees and the process of producing honey.
Learn more about Plan Bee here.
SONNE-International is a development organization, founded in 2002. The head office is in Austria, but the organization has field offices in its five focus countries: Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Malawi. The organization implements education and health projects for children and adolescents, women and underprivileged groups.
In Bangladesh, SONNE’s project areas are situated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in the Sherpur Region and in Cox’s Bazar District (Kutupalong refugee camp). The Chittagong Hill Tracts are populated by Tibeto-Burmese minority groups who, due to their secluded way of life, are grossly disadvantaged in comparison with the Bengal majority. SONNE operates 10 schools in the Hill Tracts, as well as a student hostel for further education in the regional capital Alikadam. SONNE runs similar activities for the Garo minority in Sherpur.
Kutupalong is the world’s largest refugee camp. Here SONNE provide health care to the Rohingya refugees who fled persecution in Myanmar.
Sampan’s Bengal Rising tour is in support of SONNE.
Third Story Project is a non-profit social enterprise creating books for Myanmar children in Burmese and other indigenous languages. Over 100 languages are spoken in Myanmar and Third Story Project has created books in over 13 of them; in some cases printing in languages only spoken by small pocket communities in far-flung areas of the country.
The books, written and illustrated by local artists, cover a selection of key topics ranging from peace and tolerance to female empowerment and child rights.
The books are distributed to children and communities free of charge. But to do this they require your help! Let us know if you wish for us to help you meet the team behind Third Story Project while in Yangon.
