Myanmar APS team achieved all of the project objectives during three months of project implementation. Under this project, funded by APS and Nippon Foundation, APS Myanmar team aimed to achieve the following objectives:

• To promote public awareness on how crucial it is for Myanmar to have peace and promote it for positive change  
• To support IDPs in Kachin in two camps, giving a message that Non-Kachin ethnic groups are also sharing their love, support and wishes for their best future
• To make youths volunteers realize how fellow children and youths are suffering in conflict affected areas so that they stop wasting their time at homes and change their attitudes for better lives
• To promote an effective and meaningful APS alumni Myanmar group!

Myanmar APS team achieved these objectives through a series of interconnected activities all of which aimed to ensure effective and innovative project intervention within the timeframe and budget while maximizing in engagement and coordination with other stakeholders. The team, in coordination with other youth volunteers and local partners, held one social media campaign, one Children’s Peace Event, and one trip to two Kachin IDPs camps for social psycho support activities. The project team has also received lots of local support and in-kind contributions such as children stories books, cash donation for IDPs kids, and technical support from other celebrities. The five alumnus involved in this project also contributed their time in a pro bono way without charging their daily professional fees.

This initiative represents the first APS alumni efforts in Myanmar that can be starting point to establish and strengthen alumni based peace efforts and interventions with the existing networks, capacities, resources, and technical support to those marginalized communities in the future. Given the experimental nature of this initiative, new challenges, opportunities and connections arose throughout the implementation period. The most significant challenge to implementation was the current closing civic space to civil society that leads to cancelling proposed ideas of organizing public outdoor child rights event in Yangon. This challenge resulted to move the venue to a local monastic education school in Bago region that is providing school education for more than 400 students, even a better and suitable location! As knowledge of the initiative spread, new connections and opportunities for future collaboration arose. This include strong collaboration and participation between the project team and local partners such as Moving Forward Together (MFT), Kalayna Mitta Foundation (KMF), Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC), Myanmar Books Aid and Preservation Foundation,  One Love Band and Reggae singer, Magician, individual donors, in kind documentary maker, Myitkyina University Christian Fellowship, volunteers and monastic education school. Most importantly, the project implementation provided a valuable platform within APS alumni team for strengthening friendship, discussing future professional opportunities and supporting each other.

More information here:

1. Skynet UptoDate TV channel had broadcasted our children’s peace event in Bago

2. Eight minutes and three minutes short video clips about this project