Jochen Meissner from Austria together with his Burmese colleague, Michael (Kyaw Min Naing), have returned from 3000 km long cycling journey from Yangon to Singapore while raising funds and awareness for our new street kids center.
Within the thirty days of their journey, Jochen and Michael’s to raise 17.689 Euro, an equivalent of one-year care for over forty underprivileged children. The support consists of providing two healthy meals a day, medical care, bathing facilities and education and various activities in a modern-day care centre. The enrolled children are stay at home during the evenings and keep contact with their families.
As Jochen and Michael were moving across the countries, the campaign gathered momentum form both a monetary and an awareness perspective. The volunteer team has been on the ground the entire time: no networking event was left unturned and two very successful events helped to overeach the target.
Families forced to give up their children due to money struggles
With two thirds (66%) of adults earning MMK100,000 (≈$75) or less per month, Myanmar families often need to make hard choices while bringing up their offspring. As a result, many struggling Myanmar families are forced to abandon their children and send them into an orphanage house where children are growing up without contact with their parents. Lack of family support has a tremendous impact on their psychological and social development leaving many children with trauma. SONNE International supports fostering the relationship between parents and children and with centres conveniently located where families are, it gives an opportunity for parents to focus on making a living, and providing some relief from the constant worrying about their children’s well-being.
SONNE’s program also supports kids in getting back to school since every attendee is assisted in their educational journey aiming to get these children into the classroom whilst simultaneously ensuring that those kids who are enrolled into formal education maintain it and graduate. Having in mind that almost 10% of parents in Myanmar could not send their children to school, this enables kids to find a better living and creates a wonderful opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.