Soe in tears reap in joy

Community Care Myanmar (CCM) held their Pre-School Graduation Ceremony on the 14th March 2020. Among the graduates was 9-year-old Swe Thue and his proud parents, father Win Htut Hlaing and mother, Soe Soe Nwe. The day was a celebration and acknowledgment of everyone’s hardwork ranging from teachers, Swe Thue’s parents and Swe Thue himself to mark his ongoing growth and development. The CCM team had a chance to sit-down with his parents to reflect on this and is highlighted in the following testimony told by his mother, Soe Soe Nwe.

”When our second son, Shwe Thue was born, we faced many challenges. Initially when I gave birth in the village he didn’t move - he was like a stillborn baby. But one of the experienced retired nurses helped and he was able to survive. Since birth he was born with this disability and we faced many challenges. When Shew Thue was a baby he couldn’t suckle my breast milk and it was difficult for him to breath, as he could only breathe from his mouth. Some of the other parents in the community said to us, ‘He will not live and if they were us, we should just abandon him.’ But we didn’t listen to them and took pity on our son. Despite these challenges, we had the strong determination and conviction to look after him, whatever happened, as he is our son and it is not his fault or our fault.

Since coming to CCM our son Shwe Thue has been developing in every aspect such as socially, growing in confidence and his education level. He can follow learning activities and develop well after coming to school. Our son really enjoys painting and coloring and his favorite activity is playing with toy cars! Even though his eyesight is poor in one eye, he can also understand the alphabet and basic mathematics. When he comes back home from school, he likes to read some of his books and sing songs that he has learned. He shows us proudly the things he has been doing such as coloring activities and when he has achieved good teacher comments or being awarded stars on his exercise book.

Now he has a lot of friends and is treated as an equal. He has confidence and feels good when he goes out of the house as they are his friends from class and school. We’re very happy and thankful for CCM accepting our child as he is different from other children. We cannot express our thanks to the teachers and we are very lucky as none of the other schools in neighboring townships accepted our child. We want him to keep studying and learning step by step. As parents we want our son to be educated- even though he can’t write properly we have the hope that he can continue to learn and develop.

Our gratitude is beyond words! We are so thankful- as our child is not normal and is disabled but CCM looks after our child. The teachers do not discriminate against our child, they treat him equally. When we see how they treat our child we are so thankful and happy.

When we came with Swe Thue to the graduation ceremony today he told us, ‘Mum and Dad don’t go away, be with me when I get my certificate.’ He was very proud and happy to collect. We are also so proud as parents to see what our son has achieved. Even though our child has graduated today, we still want to keep him here for his further studies and we want him to keep improving in everything and develop. We humbly request CCM to continue to teach our child and look after him for his development.

More recently we continue to face many challenges for example our incomes are not stable. As a family we are renting a small house and at the moment our main income is mainly from my husband. Our eldest son is now also coming up to his final year in high school maturation 10th standard in a neighboring township.
Recently we had to move house to a cheaper more remote location in the community- as the houseowner repaired the old broken house we previously rented (which we rented previously for 25,000 kyats (17 USD) per month, but after the house owner repaired they demanded double the rent- at 50,000 kyat (34 USD) per month and we were told to pay 2 months in advance, which we could never afford.) So, we had to move to a smaller place further away, but the rent is more reasonable at 30,000 kyat (21 USD) paid monthly.
Before I was supporting the family by handwashing clothes and travelling house to house in downtown Yangon, but now the usual customers that I used to help have moved far away- so I don’t have a stable income. I am currently trying to sell things in the local community, but it is not easy as there are not many customers, as where we live is on the outskirts of the community. I try selling goods which will not easily spoil such as potatoes, onions, rice, oil and also clothes, but as I mentioned our place is not in a good location and therefore there are not many customers.

My husband is working in construction as a carpenter, but his job is not stable and is often part-time-based on demand. Also, he doesn’t have any of his own carpenter tools, but if he did have then he could work independently. If possible, I would like to continue selling things within the community, but maybe in a different location which is closer to customers. All we want is for Swe Thue and our older son to be happy so we are trying our best to put them first.”

Translated by CCM Team Member.