Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

4^thReport for Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

 Dear Friends and Family, 

The cold season has arrived here in Kalaw and even colder out at the new training centre in Sha Bin village 1,500 metres!! We made it through our first rainy season and now trying to keep stay warm as we wait for the hot season over the next few months. 

As some of you may know, our main project in Kalaw, Sprouting Seeds Café, Bakery and Eco Shop Training Center has to move to a new location. The building which housed the project and also our family has sold and we have been given 2 months to move out. This is our biggest priority at the moment as it is directly linked to the farm and all of our work with Whispering Earth. 

Although we are focusing our energy for the next month and half on the move of the café and home, we are still very excited about the progress we are making out at the farm. 

We are working with local villagers and have the 4-5 months of dry season to really work on parts of the project while the weather is nice. 

Vehicle for projects
We have spent the last week with one of our Board of Directors making lots of for all of the projects for the upcoming year. We are so excited for all the plans we have ahead of us. We have identified the importance of having a vehicle that we can use for all of the projects. It is crucial at this stage to have a vehicle in order to safely get ourselves, materials and volunteers from town out to the farm and for uses with the other projects. 

Adobe Brick Making
Within the next week we will organize a team of local villagers and start our workshop on adobe brick making. We have arranged a large truck of rice husk and rice straw for the bricks and to start the first building. This will be a unique opportunity for the first time for villagers in our this area to learn how to make adobe bricks. 

Green House and Shading for trees
As you all may know, we have planted many trees over the last few months of rainy season. Now with the cold weather and dry season ahead of us, we are focusing our energy on protecting the trees with natural mulch and shade cloth. We are also starting a small greenhouse space to prepare seedlings and young trees and veggies to get them ready for planting in this coming rainy season. 

Road Repairs
Because the road going into the farm is new and we had some erosion in the rainy season, we are starting road repairs over the next week. We will have several workers maintaining parts of the road and some trucks of gravel will be dropped to make it easier for travel in during the heavy rainy season. 

Water System
We are ready to set up the first large water catchment tank on the farm. Once this is in place we can begin to set up smaller tanks to use gravity to drain down in order to water all the young trees and allow us to be able to make the adobe bricks.  We are very excited to have a basic water system set up soon on the farm! 

We are excited to share more photos with you as we make progress on the farm over the next few weeks!!! 

Thank you for all of your support!!!! 

Whispering Earth Team 

Links:

• A short video about the new farm and seed saving project