Tamu Trip Report

As the first place winners of Save the Children's case study competition, the staff from the Middle Islands chose to visit the region of Tamu. Tamu is located in the North of Myanmar's Chin state, which borders neighboring India. Save the Children's main project in this area is to combat HIV/AIDS through various means, including consultation. Other organizations that have projects in Tamu are CARE, The Myanmar Nurses' Association (MNA), and Marie Stopes International (MSI)

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Participants
1. U Ko Ko Latt – APC – M&S - Thingangone
2. Ko Sow Lwin – APC- M&S – Dee Du Gone
3. Saw Eden – APC – M&S - Thingangone

Period
12th May – 17th May, 2010

Activities Report
12th May, 2010, Wednesday

8:00AM
Checked in at Yangon Airport

9:45AM
Departed from Yangon
12:15PM – 12:35PM
Received field exchange program guide lines from Gmail
12:15PM-2:00
Shared program activities between winning team and receiving team
Visited the drop in center (DIC) room of Care Myanmar.
The receiving team is comprised of an outreach worker Save the Children, Program Officer and Program Assistant from Care
2:00PM
Departed from Kalay by Car
5:05PM
Arrived in Tamu


5:05PM-6:30PM
Met with receiving team
Planned for field visit to 3 villages (Chaung Net Kyi, Khun Moon Nun, Nant Phalon)
Planned for Village dialogues with program staff
Planned for the meeting of the winning team and receiving team


13th May, 2010, Thursday

9:00-10:30AM
Visited DIC
Shared programs with Myanmar Nurses' Association (MNA)

10:30AM
Travelled to "Nan Phalon" village by motorcycle
11:00AM
Arrived at Nan Phalon
11:00-12:30PM
Met with Daw Kyaing, AMW of Nan Phalon ward 13
Conducted home visits to 8 women with children 0-28 days old
Because of the weather, post natal mothers were not able to attend our community dialogues. We decided to pay them visits at
their households in order to donate baby blankets and educate them on newborn health.


12:30-1:30PM
Met with Daw Nay Hnin Kyan, AMW
Asked for the list of pregnant women, and women with children 0-28 days old
Recorded names and villages of women who received baby blankets
Visited homes and distributed baby blankets

1:30-2:20PM
Lunch
2:20PM
Departed from Tamu via motorcycle
3:00PM
Arrived at Khun Moon Nun Village (at the village leader's house)
3:00-4:00PM
Conducted community dialogues with the villagers and local birth attendants
Asked community members about their issues and suggestions regarding newborn health and child survival (NCS)
Shared how we have implemented NCS in our community
Distributed baby blankets to 2 post natal mothers and explained the purpose of baby blankets / newborn health
4:00PM
Travelled back to Tamu
5:30PM
Arrived at Tamu

14th May. 2010, Friday

9:00-10:00AM
Visited the DIC room
Prepared for the coordination meeting
10:00AM-2:00PM
Coordination meeting with Marie Strope International (MSI), Care Myanmar, MNA, and Save the Children
2:00-3:00PM
Community dialogue with 3rd trimester pregnant women from Nan Phalon ward 12
As we had limited amounts of baby blankets, we did not distribute blankets to them.
We took a list to distribute at a later time
3:00-4:00PM
Lunch
4:00-7:00PM
Bought new baby blankets from Nan Phalon Village
Home visited 11 mothers of children 0-28 day old children in Nan Phalon

15th May, 2010, Saturday (Holiday)
9:00AM-2:00PM
Sightseeing
2:00-5:00PM
Took 2 care studies from MSM (male sex with male), sons of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA)
These case studies will be submitted by an outreach worker from Tamu to the HIV program


5:00-8:00PM
Returned back to Kalay by car
8:00-9:00PM
Dinner with the staff of Care Myanmar
9:00-2:00AM
Helped the receiving team in writing 2 case studies
Wrote a proposal for the child focus project receiving team

Lessons Learned

Outreach workers (OW) in Kalay and Tamu are committed and have a high capacity. They are performing program activities efficiently without any Project Assistant (PA) or Project Officer (PO) or AM despite of high risk situation (both HIV risk and political risk).

Mothers are found with many children (More than 5 children) and they are not accustomed to birth spacing.

The Middle Island team are doing 7 programs in our community. We get the chance to learn the HIV program run by consortium (Save the Children, Care, Marie Stopes and MNMA).