The girl in the gray shirt returned home from living at an orphanage because her parents are now confident that their new-found prosperity will enable them to provide an education for their daughter in their own village!
Every child longs to be a part of a family. Christian orphanages are good, but keeping children with their families or relatives is so much better. I’m so excited to be able to share with you how Orphan’s Tear is making this dream possible in one remote village in Myanmar!
The problem was that children living in Ngai Zam Village had no school. Sadly, the poor parents of Ngai Zam felt they had to send their children to a faraway orphanage in Kalaymyo, one of the few cities in this sparsely populated region of the country, so that they could get an education. Knowing that an education is a ticket out of poverty, many poor parents are willing to send their children to this kind of distant, boarding-school-type arrangement in the hopes that they will live better lives.
Upon learning that Orphan’s Tear-friend Mawia directed a small orphanage in Kalaymyo, Ngai Zam families brought their children to live with his family and the true orphans in his care so that they could receive an education in the local schools. Mawia refused them, however, because he knew that the children shouldn’t live apart from their families—and because he had a better, more biblical idea.
Mawia then approached Orphan’s Tear about offering the village a $2,500 loan to help boost the local economy. If the villagers wanted to send him their children just so that they could attend school, Mawia reasoned, then why not bring the school to Ngai Zam Village?
It is working. Parents in the village are beginning to prosper and, most importantly, will be able to afford to hire a teacher and open their very first school, making children and parents very happy!
Through your support, we are helping the children of Ngai Zam Village stay with their families—and are working to help the children of many more villages “stay at home” in the future!
Elisabeth Walker
Director of Orphan’s Tear
Some of the grateful families of Ngai Zam village
