In December Andrew went back to Myanmar to run some microenterprise workshops, having laid the ground work during a visit at the end of 2006. He was anxious to see how the country had changed after the marches and shootings of September 2007.
Four of us – Hannah Rishworth, Sarah Trenwith, Geoff Cooper and I – arrived a few days before Christmas to undertake “microfinance” training with the Presbyterian Church of Myanmar.
To my surprise the streets of the main city Yangon seemed not to have changed in any way: the same black-market money changers approached us on the same street corners, despite the live rounds fired into crowds of peaceful protestors here; the same fruit vendors peddled their produce just metres from where the killing of a Japanese photographer had captured world headlines just a few months before.
On the surface, the Myanmar we encountered in December 2007 was exactly the same as the Myanmar we had experienced for the first time one year prior. It is only under the surface, we found, that the events of September 2007 changed Burma. Whether this change was positive (hope given and international attention attracted) or negative (an even more paranoid and suspicious regime) is debatable.
One thing that hasn’t changed is that, despite the bravery of those who defied their oppressors, people in Burma know that the consequences of speaking out – for both them and their families – are more severe than enduring the tyranny.
We were again floored by the friendship and hospitality of the people of Tahan. With limited time, we started our training sessions the first day we arrived. On Christmas Eve, Geoff became seriously sick with an intense fever that lasted for three days and had us all a bit worried. The doctor at the Agape Clinic diagnosed his condition as “acute-severe” but we didn’t know much beyond that. Having had first hand experience of the clinic, Geoff can confirm that the new hospital beds being funded by St Columba church in Auckland – to replace the current ones made only of wood with no mattresses – will make a big difference.
While the three of us continued the training sessions, the Rev Enga (the PCM General Secretary) arranged for somebody to be with Geoff in his room at all times. After Geoff had recovered, both the flights out of Tahan that week were promptly cancelled without explanation.
As it is illegal for foreigners to travel through particular rural areas, special permission had to be sought (including the paying of appropriate “fees”) to allow us to make the 13-hour journey over cratered roads to Mandalay, from where we could fly to Yangon. This trip took us through the breathtaking beauty of northwest Myanmar’s plains and river valleys, interrupted only occasionally by military checkpoints, which were sometimes staffed by soldiers more keen to shake our hands and try out their English than to check our papers were in order.
The general training with Synod representatives from across the PCM was a great success. All those involved willingly engaged and asked many challenging questions – microfinance as an idea took quite a bit of selling, which reassured us that our training wasn’t simply being assimilated without question.
Our sense at the end of five days of sessions was that the training had left them with a tool that needs to be significantly modified by those with local knowledge, but that can be used to design and implement microenterprise schemes as part of a wider community development project.
The consensus seemed to be that this was an idea that might work well in plain areas and in towns, but would be ineffective in hill communities.
It was an incredible experience seeing the theoretical concepts in our training manual developed into real-life examples. The discussions quickly led to the feasibility of other hypothetical projects in Tahan and across the Chin state.
Following our general training, we spent a few days working on some specifics with the people of the Zo Synod, with whom Aotearoa Development Cooperative (our small training organisation) will be running a microfinance pilot. This was far less conceptual and concerned the nuts and bolts of the project, which we hope to launch sometime in 2008. There are two local managers being employed to train community members and draw up microenterprise plans for potential applicants.
The next step is for the capital to be transferred to the Zo Community Bank and for the first loans to be dispersed. If this proves to be a successful form of development, our hope is that it will become an integral part of the relationship between the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and PCM that is currently developing under the leadership of St Columba and the Global Mission Office.