Future possibilities for linking with Child Development Centre

Sheila, Lisa Houston, Dr Cynthia and Mahn Shwe Huin

Today I visited Child Development Centre for the second time. Child Development Centre is the very large school run by Mae Tao Clinic. It has 1200 students. 400 0f these children are boarders in the school boarding house. They board because their parents may have died at the hands of the Burmese military because of last year's Cyclone Nargis or because they have become separated from their parents.

Our meeting was to discuss the possibilities of linking Child Development Centre's Primary School with a Scottish primary school and linking their secondary school with a Scottish secondary school through the UK Dept for International Development's Global Schools Partnership scheme. Mahn Shwe Huin, the Principal of CDC, Nant Htay Si, CDC Vice Principal and the 5 senior teachers I met were all very excited and keen to pursue partnership if this is possible. It was also decided that if we can proceed to partnership that Nant Htay Si would be the first person to visit Scotland. This is very exciting indeed.

Nant Htay Si, Sheila and Lisa

Dr Thein Lwin and Lisa Houston helped set up this meeting. Lisa is a Scotswoman who has worked at Mae Tao Clinic for many years as administrator and sometimes travel home to Edinburgh to meet her family. Her husband Rocky is Karen and they have 2 beautiful Scottish Karen children, Ailsa and Jack. Lisa visited Forthview earlier this year.

We were joined towards the end of our meeting by Dr Cynthia. It was a great honour to meet her. You can read about her amazing story and work on http://www.maetaoclinic.org/. but in short, Mae Tao Clinic provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers, and other individuals who cross the border from Burma to Thailand.

Dr Cynthia is very keen to see such a partnership develop and looks forward to the professional development opportunities it will bring her teachers and the unique learning opportunities it will bring CDC students.