myME: Myanmar Mobile Education Project


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Teashops in Myanmar are often "manned" by
​children who have no opportunity to go to school.



MISSION: Provide education via mobile classrooms to children in Myanmar (Burma) who've been compelled into indentured servitude at teashop restaurants where they're forced to work long hours every day in order to sustain their families. The mobile classrooms provide these children an opportunity to learn basic literacy, math and computer skills in a safe environment where they can gain self-confidence and develop critical thinking skills through innovative, interactive instruction.

VISION: Every child in Myanmar (Burma) has the right to access quality education no matter their circumstance. Education is a critical step toward alleviating poverty and the abuses associated with child labor. 
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For many families in Myanmar, sending children to work is an undesired necessity.  We started the pilot run with 60 kids in 2 teashops in early 2014. Less than three years later, myME has already expanded to serve more than 3,000 students from various teashops, road-side restaurants, monastic schools, and underprivileged communities in Yangon, Mandalay, Mawlamying, Myingyan, Kyauk-Se, Dala, East Dagon, and Hlaing Thar Yar townships with over 60 staff and 5 mobile classroom buses.

​The myME Project is the first mobile education solution in Burma.
While we are not the first to use non-formal education, we are the first to bring it to child laborers. In Burma, according to 2014 census data, there are 5.09 million children between ages 5-18 out of school.

Around 10,000 working and out-of-school children benefited since we started the project with average 87% attendance rate.

Congratulations to our "Outstanding Students 2016"
Zar Zar Tun migrated to Yangon from her Kyauk-Saung-San Village, Sin-Paung-Wae Township, Magway division in 2012. She was 12 years old, and left her parents and 5 brothers and sisters back in the village. She was 14 years old when she started taking myME classes, and graduated Level I, Pre-Level II, and Level II courses and is now taking Vocational trainings (Sewing and Fashion Design) at one of myME's partner organizations. Zar Zar Tun wants to be working at a company one day, also wants to become a singer or fashion designer.

Zaw Zaw Khing migrated to Mandalay from Nyaung-Don village in Ma-Hlaing Township and start working at Moe-Kaung-Kin Teashop in 2015 when he was 13 years old. His father passed away a few years ago and he's the breadwinner of the family with 3 younger brothers and a sister and mother back in the village. His mother works at random jobs when she is able to find them. One of the youngest and brightest myME students, Zaw Zaw Khing completed Level I in September, 2016 and is now attending Level II classes. He's most concerned with not being able to attend/study with myME and likes to become a tea master and baker in order to make more money to take care of his mother and family.