DALA, Rangoon Division — When Daw Ni Ni left her native Chin state in early 2009, she hoped to find work and a new life as a longyi weaver in Dala, just across the river from downtown Rangoon. The region had been devastated by Cyclone Nargis only months before, but that did little to deter her dreams.
Soon after her arrival, Daw Ni Ni’s course took a sharp turn. A friend of her husband arrived at her home with an abandoned baby girl, asking her to care for the child. Despite her hesitation and a complete lack of food and resources at the time, she took the child in. The local community in Dala soon rallied around with support in the form of rice and vegetables.
In a country where the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, estimates that one in three children are malnourished and 50 percent of under-five infant deaths are preventable, much of the nation’s child welfare responsibilities fall to private citizens with generous hearts.
Without such help, many of these children could become victims of child sexual assault, be left to beg on the streets, given grossly underpaid, physically punishing work for long hours in teashops and factories, or even find themselves recruited and exploited by unscrupulous armed forces.
For Daw Ni Ni, that first young baby girl became the start of a steady flow of children arriving at her home—some orphaned, others simply abandoned or neglected by broken families, all in need of urgent help and protection.
None were turned away, regardless of their faith or ethnicity, and with growing support her home slowly transformed into a child refuge center. The modest residence is now home to more than 17 boys and seven young girls ranging in age from 5 to 17 years, diverse in ethnicity, many from Chin, Naga and Shan backgrounds.
Daw Ni Ni it seemed, had found her calling.
Her husband, Zaw Zwa, is now a river boatman, and together they provide a home and—Daw Ni Ni readily admits—a sometimes patchy education to their ever-growing family.
These days support comes from a variety of sources, although their mainstay is still the local community, supplemented by occasional help and interest from foreign visitors. Daw Ni Ni said that she does not meet the capacity threshold required to qualify for government assistance as an orphanage.
Some of the older boys in her care now work in local repair shops to supplement the household income. The older girls pitch in around the house by cooking and cleaning.
Each child is provided with a locker, and the boys sleep on mats on the ground floor, while the girls stay upstairs with Daw Ni Ni. When the Irrawaddy visited their home on Thursday, most of the children were happily engrossed in an animated movie on the television downstairs.
With an ever-growing population of children at risk on the streets of Burma’s cities, private children’s homes, such as Daw Ni Ni’s, provide an essential service in salvaging young lives and offering protection and hope for the future.