The sad story of Zin Zaw, a young and able Burmese learner

On Thursday night while eating in the night market, we were invited over to see Zin Zaw's house (not her real name). She is in one of the top classes in school and is a very smart, engaging, clever lassie with good friends. When we saw her little home we were amazed at how lovely she and her family had made what was essentially a corrugated iron shed. It had one room and everyone slept on a wee platform with a curtain to screen off the young married couple she lives with while her mum is away working. So all in all, it seems that 7 folk may stay in this little iron lean to. On the wall Zin Zaw has her Hle Bee photo and a letter from her Forthview friend. It showed me how much hope and richness this partnership gives to individual Burmese children.

Zin Zaw is 14 and didn't turn up for school at the start of this school year. When the teachers went round to her home, they found her working in a cafe as a waitress. Her mum said they couldn't afford to have her not working any more. They need the income so she must leave school and work. The Headteacher persuaded mum to let Zin Zaw return to school but for how long?

So we asked, 'IF Scotland could pay her mother the wages Zin Zaw would earn (about 80p a day!), could the teachers ask her mother if she could come to school every day?' We know this happens for one other boy in the school from another donor. The teachers thought the mum would accept this. She does want the best for her daughter. So we wait to hear if this is possible.

How shocking is it that for 80p a day a child might have to leave school. What sort of world do we live in?

Now you know why we were so distressed....