In 2008, the teachers of three Migrant Learning Centres in Mae Sot selected three young adolescents from Myanmar as representatives for their schools to attend a one-year youth leadership programme organised by the Mekong Youth Net Project (MYN) in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand. The leadership programme was designed to train a new generation of 100 young leaders from six countries in order to combat human trafficking and other social issues across the Mekong region. These students, named Joli, Kiki, and Eh Mwe, received a scholarship from Help without Frontiers Thailand Foundation to allow them to realize this opportunity.
After having completed the leadership programme, Joli, Kiki and Eh Mwe came back to Mae Sot where Help without Frontiers hosted them as interns. In August 2009, these three young leaders jumped into a new and challenging adventure: the Rays of Youth programme. Drawing from the example of the leadership programme that they had previously attended, Joli, Kiki and Eh Mwe wanted to pass their knowledge onto their peers. Their vision was to empower young adolescents with knowledge and life skills to serve their communities and become active protagonists of social development.
In the past ten years of the project, Joli, Kiki and Eh Mwe have set up a unique Leadership programme that is designed to educate young adolescents as role models who, driven by a strong desire to change their communities, pass their knowledge onto their peers and multiply the positive effects of learning and education. The Leadership programme in Mae Sot is open to young adolescents from Myanmar who migrated to Thailand with their families or unaccompanied, mostly looking for better life opportunities. Since the inception of the Rays of Youth Leadership programme, more than 60 youth have been trained on social issues and acquired life skills that they will transmit to their communities.
In 2014, the Rays of Youth project was launched also inside Myanmar, mainly to develop community development projects in rural areas. Over time, the Rays of Youth have developed a sound network of partners inside the country, including NGOs, CBOs, and CSOs, and other local stakeholders involved in youth empowerment and social development. As of 2019, the Rays of Youth activities target villages and communities in five different states inside Myanmar: Karen, Kayah, Shan, Mon, and Rakhine states.
Over the years, through the fruitful collaboration with local partners, the Rays of Youth have deepened their understanding of the issues that the youth inside Myanmar is facing as well as the struggles that their communities are called to deal with. Social issues range from widespread abuse of alcohol and drugs amongst the youth, access to education, conflict and internal displacement, and much more. In 2019, as the Rays of Youth rapidly expands inside Myanmar, a new Leadership programme will be launched in Mae Sot to welcome youth coming from five states inside Myanmar. The new Leadership programme is designed to educate a generation of leaders who will be capable to develop and improve their society.
On 3 April, an orientation and coordination meeting was held in Yangon, Myanmar, to gather partners from five states. During the meeting, the participants had the chance to learn more about the work of the Rays of Youth and of Help without Frontiers. Through a participatory discussion, the participants to the meeting had also the opportunity to share their views on the situation of the youth in communities inside Myanmar as well as on their roles in society. As emerged from the discussion, across different communities in Myanmar, there is a widespread belief that the youth is meant to follow and learn from the elders, keeping a low profile and not exceeding in participation and self-initiative. In opposition to this misleading understanding on the role of youth, all participants agreed on the fundamental and ambitious role that the youth play in social development.
Help without Frontiers is grateful for the fruitful meeting in Yangon and for the sound collaboration with partners inside Myanmar that makes it possible to exchange information and knowledge as well as to adapt and improve our projects and activities. We are excited for this new chapter of the Rays of Youth project and we look forward to meeting this group of future leaders very soon!
