CAD is calling for application of project evaluation consultant to conduct an independent final evaluation of the CAD Project known as “Improving Education Access for Children in Mi-E (Me-Aye) area, Hakha Township, Chin state, funded by Myanmar Education Consortium – MEC.
CAD- Call for Applications of Project Evaluation Consultant
We are very happy to say that we have won the initial step of funding from Access to Health Fund for public health. We are excited to step up the final stage of submitting our full proposal to AHF very soon. Under this project, CAD is planning to implement Rights, Inclusion, Awareness and Services (RIAS) on SRHR for youth, old people and families. We were shared by young girls that they are in need of SRHR and utilities in their areas.
It is our great pleasure to release this information that CAD with its other (3) partners received funding from ECHO for implementation of Co-Learns Project in Sagaing and Magwe Regions for from 2022 to 2025.
Through this project, the Consortium members will provide education services to primary school-aged children affected by the conflict in 4 districts -Gangaw, Tilin, Myaung and Myinmu) located in Magway and Sagaing Regions.
The action will be led by Cesvi with Helvetas in Consortium. The field activities are implemented by 2 implementing partners: CAD (National NGO), which will cover 2 townships located in North-West Magway Region, and SNM (National NGO) that will cover 2 townships in Sagaing Region. This proposal is based on the agencies’ combined experiences, thematic and contextual knowledge, and on a need assessment, recently conducted, that shows an alarming exclusion of school-aged children from formal education due to the schools’ closure, compounded by widespread protection concerns. To respond to the identified needs, the action will ensure that primary school-aged boys and girls currently out of school will access non-formal education opportunities promoted at community level.
Dear All,
Please find the below CAD vacancy announcement for your information. It would be very much appreciated if you could kindly post an attached vacancy announcement on your office bulletin board or circulate it to every interested person.
Please click the link:
http://cadmm.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CAD_Program-Manager.pdf
Today is the 19 Anniversary Birthday of CAD organization. Therefore I would like extend my Birthday wishes to all former CAD staffs and donors as well as our current CAD staffs and donors too. I am deeply indebted to you all for your all generous financial support and tireless works for community developments of our disadvantaged people in rural Myanmar.
With a collective request and decision of Lutuv Tribal Elders leaders for swift responding of possible Internally Displaced People in the central part of Chin State, Lutuv tribal area on 20 February 2022, CAD signed a Memory of Understanding with Lautu Internally Displaced People Management Committee (LIDPMC).
After giving refuge to about five hundreds of desperate displaced people from other regions since January 2022, at some villages in the Lutuv region, our regional leaders were convinced well that a solid preparation for possible huge-IDPs is necessary in our region. Such sudden arrival of displaced people from other villages to our region, make some Lutuv villagers shocked that they felt insecure and some Lutuv people also run to India border areas where thousands of Chin people are taking refuges in makeshift camps since September 2021. Actually there was never war between the army and militia in our area for the last 40 years.
Therefore LIDPMC was hereby set up by Lutuv Villages’ Elders of (12) Villages in Hnaring town on 27 January 2022 to provide swift assistances and humanitarian aids to Internally Displaced People from other regions and from other villages if such crisis would happen in our mother Lutuv region. The reason of setting us such committee is that after the Myanmar military overthrown the elected civilian government of National League for Democracy in 2020 election on 1 February 2021, intensive fighting between the army and local youth armed groups known as the Chinland Defense Forces – CDF, who are fighting for restoration of democracy and for eradication of military regime, have been occurring since March 2021 in Chin state. Such civil war has resulted exodus of thousands of local people from their villages to peaceful areas. Thousands of houses were either destroyed or burnt down and hundreds of local people were shot killed and arrested without any accountability by any party.
This LIDPMC was hereby set up by Lutuv Villages’ Elders of (12) Villages in Hnaring town on 27 January 2022 to provide swift assistances and humanitarian aids to Internally Displaced People from other regions and from other villages if such crisis would happen in our mother Lutuv region. The reason of setting us such committee is that after the Myanmar military overthrown the elected civilian government of National League for Democracy in 2020 election on 1 February 2021, intensive fighting between the army and local youth armed groups known as the Chinland Defense Forces – CDF, who are fighting for restoration of democracy and for eradication of military regime, have been occurring since March 2021 in Chin state. Such civil war has resulted exodus of thousands of local people from their villages to peaceful areas. Thousands of houses were burnt down and thousands of local people were shot killed and arrested without any accountability by any party.
We estimate that there are about 15,000 populations of Lutuv tribe around the world. The majority of Lutuv people are living in Thang Tlang and Matupi townships, the central part of Chin state, in Kalay township of Sagain region, but the minority in Yangon, in Australia, in United States of America, Europe, in Malaysia and India. 100% of the Lutuv tribe are Christians.
CAD and UNICEF signed a project contract agreement on 15 December 2021. The project is known as Small Scale Funding Agreement (SSFA) on Extended and Continuous Education and Learning for Out-of-School Children aged 10-17 year in Hakha Township, Chin State. The project will be begun from December 2021 to September 2022.
Continuing learning opportunity for children especially out of school children and adolescents have been disrupted during COVID-19 Pandemic. It is aggravated by the February 1st 2021 political crisis in Myanmar. The community based Extended and continuous education and learning (EXCEL) activities are conceptualized as an approach to equip adolescents with personal and interpersonal competencies to overcome the various challenges they face in everyday life through informed decision making. Through EXCEL, out of school children will have increased access and participation in non-formal education to develop necessary skills for their social protection and enhance reading literacy. Communities and parents will be mobilized and consulted to support children and adolescents learning. Community facilitators will be recruited from the same community with out of school children in the catchment areas to facilitate the training. Myanmar Literacy Resource Center will provide training and technical assistance to CAD’s staff and facilitators.
Community Agency for Rural Development (CAD) has speeded up humanitarian assistance to people of Thang Tlang City, who were finally run by intensive fighting between the Myanmar military and local militia known Chinland Defense Forces (CDF) since 20 September 2021.
Chin, a rural and mountainous state in Myanmar’s northwest which is among the country’s least developed, has become among the fiercest battlegrounds of resistance, along with Sagaing region to its north.
About 10,000 people normally live in Thantlang in Chin State, but most had left to seek shelter in surrounding areas including in India, a community leader said.
In India’s neighboring state of Mizoram, the head of a civil society group said 5,500 people from Myanmar had arrived in just two districts over the past week, as they scrambled to escape a military crackdown.Myanmar has been in turmoil since a government led by pro-democracy veteran Aung San Suu Kyi was toppled on February 1, sparking nationwide anger, strikes, protests, and the emergence of anti-junta militia.
During fighting last weekend in Thantlang, about 20 homes were set ablaze, with photographs on social media showing buildings engulfed in flames.
Soldiers shot dead a Christian pastor who tried to extinguish a blaze, the Myanmar Now news portal reported, although state media disputed the report.
The Global New Light of Myanmar said the pastor’s death was being investigated and that soldiers had been ambushed by about 100 “terrorists” and both sides exchanged fire.
Salai Thang, a community leader, said four civilians had been killed and 15 wounded in several weeks of conflict with the military also using air strikes after an army base was overrun.
The Chin Defense Force, a militia opposed to the military, said in a statement 30 soldiers had been killed.
Reuters could not independently confirm any of the claims and a military spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment.
A relative of the dead pastor told Reuters that only a handful of households remained in Thantlang, including about 20 children in an orphanage.
“The murder of a Baptist minister and bombing of homes in Thantlang, Chin State are the latest examples of the living hell being delivered daily by junta forces against the people of Myanmar,” Thomas Andrews, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a message on Twitter.
There has been an upsurge in bloodshed in areas like Chin State after the National Unity Government, a shadow underground administration set up by opponents of the military, declared an uprising on September 7 and called for newly formed militia to target the junta.
The attempts by the People’s Defense Forces to take on the well-equipped army have often resulted in civilians being caught in crossfire and forced to flee.
Community leader Salai Thang said he was deeply concerned about the displaced finding food and shelter.
In Mizoram, arrivals from Myanmar in the past week had mostly crossed the Tiau river by boat, the head of the Young Mizo Association, a civil society group, said by telephone.
“We have set up temporary shelters using tins (tin roofs) and tarpaulins to house these refugees purely on humanitarian grounds,” said Lalnuntluanga, who uses one name.
Myanmar’s currency has lost more than 60% of its value since the beginning of September, driving up food and fuel prices in an economy that has tanked since a military coup eight months ago.
Many gold shops and money exchanges closed on Wednesday due to the turmoil, while the kyat’s dive trended on social media with comments ranging from stark warnings to efforts to find some humour as yet another crisis hits the strife-torn nation.
“This will rattle the generals as they are quite obsessed with the kyat rate as a broader barometer of the economy, and therefore a reflection on them,” Richard Horsey, a Myanmar expert at the International Crisis Group, said.
In August, the Central Bank of Myanmar tried tethering the kyat 0.8% either side of its reference rate against the dollar, but gave up on Sept 10 as pressure on the exchange rate mounted.
The shortage of dollars has become so bad that some money changers have pulled down their shutters.
“Due to the currency price instability at the moment…all Northern Breeze Exchange Service branches are temporarily closed,” the money changer said on Facebook.
Those still operating were quoting a rate of 2,700 kyat per dollar on Tuesday, compared to 1,695 on Sept 1 and 1,395 back on Feb 1 when the military overthrew a democratically elected government led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Wolrld Bank warns economy to slump 18%
The World Bank predicted on Monday the economy would slump 18% this year and said Myanmar would see the biggest contraction in employment in the region and the number of poor would rise.
The increasing economic pressures come amid signs of an upsurge in bloodshed, as armed militias have become bolder in clashes with the army after months of protests and strikes by opponents of the junta.
“The worse the political situation is, the worse the currency rate will be,” said a senior executive at a Myanmar bank, who declined to be identified.
Myanmar is also struggling to deal with a second wave of coronavirus infections that started in June with the response by authorities crippled after many health workers joined protests. Reported cases have comes off their highs though the true extent of the outbreak remains unclear.
In the immediate months after the Feb. 1 coup, many people queued up to withdraw savings from banks and some bought gold, but a jewellery merchant in Yangon said many desperate people were now trying to sell their gold.
The central bank gave no reason to why it abandoned its managed float strategy earlier this month, but analysts believe its foreign currency reserves must be seriously depleted.
Central bank officials did not answer calls seeking comment, but World Bank data shows it had just US$7.67 billion in reserves at the end of 2020.
After coming off its managed float, the central bank still spent $65 million, buying kyat at a rate of 1,750 to 1,755 per dollar between Sept 13-27.
The bank executive said the central bank’s efforts had limited impact in a currency market shorn of confidence.
The economic crisis has driven up the price of staples, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this week that around three million people now require humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, up from one million before the coup.
In a country where gross domestic product per capita was just $1,400 last year, a 48-kg bag of rice now costs 48,000 kyat, or around $18, up nearly 40% since the coup, while gasoline prices have nearly doubled to 1,445 kyat per litre.
“If you have money, you buy gold, you buy dollars, you buy (Thai) baht. If you do not have money, you will starve,” said Facebook user Win Myint in a post.
As Myanmar Military ousted the elected democratic government of National League for Democracy on 1 February 2021 and the whole country is under the State Emergency of Military rule led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing under the de facto name of State Administration Council, we are under curfew and martial law. We witnessed our staff lives are highly at risk and banking system are almost dysfunctional in Myanmar too. Therefore, CAD, after having well discussion with our donors, decided to stop our projects implementation in 2021.
