Playtime & puppets help refugee children and families through the pandemic
Before the pandemic hit in early March of 2020, you would have found refugee children living in Rohingya, the largest refugee camp in recorded history, laughing, jumping, and playing in a BRAC Humanitarian Play Lab (HPL), a colorful and welcoming structure, its floors padded with embroidered mats Read More...
Volunteers in Myanmar build a library for orphans out of discarded plastic
Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady River intercepts an estimated 119 tons of plastic waste per day, making it one of the most polluted waterways in the world. It is not uncommon to see plastic waste littered on the country’s roadsides and clogging up sewage drains. The excess of plastic litter inspired Read More...
This Buddhist temple in Myanmar offers refuge to threatened snakes
Pythons, vipers, and cobras — these are some of the main occupants being offered a safe haven at a temple sanctuary in Myanmar’s city of Yangon. The host and caretaker is Buddhist monk Wilatha, who’s trying to play a part in saving scores of snakes that might otherwise be killed or sold on Read More...
Scientists identify incredibly rare monkey species in Myanmar
A very curious primate species has been discovered for the first time by scientists in the jungles of Myanmar. The Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa), as it’s being called, is a type of monkey with an extremely unique look. It has grayish-purple fur, black circular eyes with large rings around Read More...
Conservationists bring turtle species back from the brink of extinction
Though naturally endowed with a heartwarming smile on their faces, the fate of the Burmese roofed turtles has been far from uplifting. Only 20 years ago, the giant Asian river turtle, characterized by its bug-eyed, smiling face, was thought to be extinct by conservationists, following decades of Read More...
Meet the woman who has saved 72,000 human trafficking victims
Meet Hasina Kharbhih. When she was just a schoolgirl in Shillong, India, she started supporting the social development of vulnerable communities in the northeast of the country. Now at the age of 49, Kharbhih and her Impulse NGO Network have rescued 72,000 women and children trafficked across Read More...
One easy thing Facebook should do in Myanmar
In March, human-rights investigators from the United Nations found that Facebook had played a role in spreading hate speech in Myanmar, fueling ethnic violence that has spurred more than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh. The report, which came Read More...
When creative thinking wins over a repressive government
How do you fight a massive dam project that would destroy ecosystems and ruin whole communities, when you live under a brutal regime like Myanmar’s? You allow your anger to embolden you, you take little steps, and you use offline storytelling and communication tools and strategies such as art. Read More...