SAYA FOUNDATION
Nurturing Compassionate Life-Long Learners
If you want to learn more about teachers, children,
and education in Myanmar, you are at the right place!
WHO WE ARE
Saya Foundation aims to provide quality and safe learning opportunities for children in Myanmar while nurturing them as compassionate life-long learners. Please explore various programs we provide and information we share with you all. We wish what we present here give you a better picture about our organization and Myanmar education in general. Thanks for visiting us.
Background
Saya Foundation, previously known as Sayarma Foundation, started in 2016 as a Library Project, in Mandalay. The initial aim was to bridge the divided community through a common platform, a library, where children and younger generations can learn together to live together peacefully. Later, it has expanded with a Facebook blog where technical knowledge on education, teaching and parenting are being shared. After being recognized by a wider community, with the support of Community Partners International, Saya Foundation reached out to communities in Kalay and Lashio to provide technical support to schools starting from 2019.
Both Saya and Sayarma means “Shade” in Pali language. This word has been chosen in Myanmar for teachers taking the role of providing peaceful shade to children so that they can learn peacefully and joyfully. However, the word, Sayarma can literally be translated as Female Teacher so there were some confusions on whether this organization is supporting only women or not. So, the name was changed to Saya which is a gender-neutral Pali word for Shade.
As we named our organization as Saya Foundation, we would like to provide joyful and peaceful educational experience to all the children in Myanmar. For that, our vision is for children in Myanmar to receive quality education and meaningful support from school communities and stakeholders. So, our mission is to deliver an effective model of change for the education sector in Myanmar by an evidence-based collaborative and holistic approach for educators and education organizations.