Community Development (Soft Project)

The Soft Project is the most important factor of the EPD Project. This project aims at the sustainable school operation, institutional strength of the community and the increase of their livelihood.
There are many problems at schools in rural areas of Myanmar, such as shortage of teachers, school building and classes, furniture like desks and chairs, deteriorated school building and latrines. In some cases, the community has to employ the teachers by their own money due to very few numbers of teachers dispatched by the Government. Also, there are not enough facilities for teachers to keep them working at school for the long term.
Moreover, the community has to pay also for the repair and construction or extension of the school buildings and maintenance of roads. Those expenses are a very big burden for community people who are mostly farmers and whose incomes are irregular.
Under such situations, income-generating activities by the Soft Project of Saetanar will reduce their burden to the school operation and make it easy for them to send their children to school.
The community decides what kind of Soft Project activity shall be conducted through plenary meetings. The Soft Project must be conducted and managed by the community itself once after the capital fund is provided by Saetanar in cash. The amount of the fund is calculated based on their contribution to the school building construction by the EPD project. Therefore, the more they contribute, the greater the community development fund is presented.