BURMA – Crops and pigs fund education for poor children
When a remote parish in Burma’s Shan state needed funds desperately to provide food and schooling for 15 poor children, they came up with an unusual solution – pigs.
The children, some of whom were orphans, who came from poor families in remote villages were boarding in the parish where they were being fed and educated. So the parish turned to Aid to the Church in Need for help towards setting up a piggery as an income generation project.
It costs about £60 a month to look after eight pigs and after being reared for several months, the swine are sold for a profit. Local parish priest Fr Paul told us that the children “love to look after” the pigs, helping to find leaves to feed them.
With your help, ACN has also helped set up another piggery which is now helping to fund schooling for 39 children at a parish in the Mandalay region. Parish priest Fr Julian was overjoyed with your help: “We really feel Jesus’s love through you… We assure all the kind benefactors of our humble and sincere prayers, for the help and support you will be giving to the poor boarding children.”
With so many young children depending on him for food, shelter and education, Fr J
oseph in another remote parish in Burma is cultivating six hectares of land with rice, maize and vegetables. But even with the help of parishioners who volunteer to work the fields once a week with him, progress is slow. They urgently need a tractor to help their school project to be self-sufficient.
Astonishingly, in this largely Buddhist country, and facing oppression and hardship, a pious Catholic community is growing fast. Education is the key to overcoming the cycle of poverty and in this rural community the Church is the only chance for children to receive Christian schooling. Distances are huge, so the parish has built a hostel where 80 children live and learn during the week. The Church already owns the land, so Aid to the Church has promised to provide a walk-behind tractor.
Astonishingly, in this largely Buddhist country, and facing oppression and hardship, a pious Catholic community is growing fast. Education is the key to overcoming the cycle of poverty and in this rural community the Church is the only chance for children to receive Christian schooling. Distances are huge, so the parish has built a hostel where 80 children live and learn during the week. The Church already owns the land, so Aid to the Church in Need (Malta) has promised to provide a walk-behind tractor.
ACN Malta
