Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

5^thReport for Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

Dear Friends and Family, 

We hope this finds you all well. We have been so busy here in Kalaw with the move of our home and Sprouting Seeds Training Centre, Café, Bakery and Eco Shop. As you may know, sold the house we lived and run the project out of. Unfortunately, it took a very, very long time with lots of challenges to find a new place. We have spent the last few months making the transition and fixing the new building and property. 

Due to this our forced move from our home and training centre in town, all of our energy has gone into this. Our work on the development of Whispering Earth Training Centre out in the village has still continued but we have not been able to move forward as quickly as we had hoped. 

Forest Fire Burns the Farm
A few weeks back, we had a call that there were many forest fires in the local area around the farm. This year in Kalaw and surrounding areas have been the hottest and driest ever! This combined with the local practice of burning underbrush in the middle of dry season causes horrible forest fires. The nights are filled with glowing fires in the surrounding mountains. 

Unfortunately, the neighbors were burning their fields while strong winds and the fire spread into our farm. The fire burned the majority of the land, but the villagers were able to help and stop the fire from burning the top half of the land and the main bamboo house. 

This has been a huge setback for us. Along with all of the energy spent on the move to the new café space and continued work on making it look nice, now we also have so much work at the farm. 

The majority of large trees were not burned and some of the young trees that were just getting established also survived. However, many of the trees we planted during last rainy season were destroyed. 

 It has been a lot to deal with and now we work to set up the water system and continue to clean the property in order to prevent any further burning. We also continue to work on the nursery so  we are ready to plant as soon as the first rains start to fall in the next month. 

We are just so happy that no one was injured during the fires and we are working hard to re-green the space as soon as possible. 

Nursery & Living Fence
We continue work on the development of the nursery here in town at the café project. Once the rains begin we will transport all the young trees out to the farm. We also have been working on the living fence at the farm.  We  have planting several species of plants along the border of the property in order to create a barrier to help keep out neighboring water buffalo. 

The plants started almost a year ago are already taking root and with the coming rainy season we are hoping for them to really take off and cover some of the exposed areas around the border of the property. 

Continued Road Work
We have continued road work on the at the farm to allow easier access into the farm during rainy season. With a little more work and a truck load of gravel we should be able to enter into the farm much easier over the next 8 months of monsoon season. 

We are so thankful for all of your support for our work in the development of the new farm and Whispering Earth Sustainability Training Centre.  We are excited to share the news as we progress into the rainy season over the next few months!

Warmly, 

Whispering Earth Team