Nurturing Learning Communities in a Time of Crisis

Dear Kind Donors and Supporters,

We would like to express our deep gratitude for your valuable contributions to our project, “Nurturing Learning Communities in a Time of Crisis,” on GlobalGiving. Your generous donations have enabled us to give ongoing support to our promising young leaders in the higher-level training we call ALPS (Apprentice Leaders Program in Sustainability). We are delighted to see their growth and ability to handle ever wider responsibilities as members of the work team for the School of English for Engaged Social Service (SENS) in the 2025 season. 

After more than three months of screening applications, interviewing, selecting students, and offering scholarships, we proudly held our SENS 2025 Opening Ceremony on the 12^th of January 2025. This year’s SENS cohort consists of fourteen students from India, Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, and Vietnam. In addition, we also have six members of our regular 3-month work team, including the Program Director Ted (nickname), and two new volunteer tutors. All of us have been learning and growing together for the last 7 weeks. There have been tears but also laughter as we share the challenges and joys of our common global and unique local situations. Most importantly, we have come to feel at home with each other and have been building closeness within respectful and supportive relationships. Coming to a deeper awareness of who we are and what we can do, developing a clearer understanding of our social and ecological contexts, and then taking action are all made easier and brighter when done in concert with others whom we trust.

Upon her graduation from the SENS 2024 program, Trang (nickname) from Vietnam accepted our invitation to join the ALPS training. We were impressed by her great openness and deep empathy for others, and her keen interest and ability in practicing peer listening. Trang is now a SENS 2025 work team member and plays the role of tutor to three students in the tutoring hour. She has shown steady progress in her confidence as a leader and in her ability to understand and offer practical support to the students.

This year, Au (nickname) – a long-standing member of the ALPS group – has returned to take full responsibility for the SENS afternoon classes with support from the work team. He shared with us that feeling supported and trusted by everyone has helped him tremendously in building confidence and integrity. He is doing an excellent job of leading the afternoon classes with lightness and variety, as well as being a primary consultant for the director. We view him as an assistant director in training, and we are glad to see his growth as the program moves forward.

Several members of the ALPS team have full-time work or study commitments, but we still encourage them to join the program and offer their skills when they are available, as we know it assists them in building up experience and breadth of knowledge in leading others. Soe San (nickname) is now the full-time Youth Coordinator for the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), which is our mother organization. Though he has many responsibilities, he still decided to take on the role of tutor and work team member when possible, bringing confidence, clarity, and maturity to his leadership this year.

In March we also welcome ALPS members Chau (nickname) and Paung (nickname). Chau is an excellent Vietnamese English teacher who has worked with us for 2 years since she graduated from SENS 2023. Paung, a graduate of SENS 2024, is now doing very good work at our sister organization, providing support for Myanmar people forced to flee their country because of political instability. Another ALPS member, Mi Bu (nickname), received a full scholarship to study in the master’s program in Human Rights at the University of Arizona and has little free time. We are hoping she can join us for our evaluation meeting immediately following SENS 2025.

By inviting ALPS members to join in the work, we not only strengthen their leadership skills, we also enable them to meet and form relationships with new groups of students. This in turn allows them to serve as leaders in the emerging relationship-based network of teachers, changemakers, and counselors we are working to build in the region. We believe that peace as well as social and ecological harmony can best be achieved through cultivating the growth of such person-to-person networks. At the same time, bringing in our ALPS team members gives our students a chance to interact with peers who have overcome challenges to lead at new levels of understanding and self-reliance. These special encounters give them a wider view of the world and of what’s possible. 

We, the SENS 2025 work team, feel proud of what we have accomplished in the first seven weeks of the SENS 2025 program. We see many positive impacts from working together as SENS alumni on running the program, and we will continue to invite outstanding students to the ALPS team. We believe that with genuine and consistent personalized support, the ALPS training can help to incubate young leaders with compassion and integrity in the region. Your donations help make this possible, for travel, food, and housing are all necessary parts of bringing these leaders into our ongoing work. We are very grateful for all you have done. Thank you for reading this report. And thank you for your companionship in this work.

We would be glad if you could share this report and/or talk about our work with your friends and family.

With warm wishes,

Au, SENS Program Assistant

[This report was drafted by Au, then edited by Director Ted Mayer.]

Dear kind supporters and donors,

This project—Nurturing Learning Communities in a Time of Crisis—seeks to provide ongoing, individualized support and training to graduates of our School of English for Engaged Social Service (SENS). We find that young adult leaders, like most everyone, appreciate attentive and thoughtful support as they grow into taking on more responsibility and building a bigger vision of what is possible. Your contributions to this project make that possible.

Concretely, your contributions to this project primarily support outstanding graduates of SENS who want to assist in expanding and carrying on the work of SENS, and Myanmar teachers who have escaped for safety to the town of Mae Sot, Thailand. 

Our work in the recent period has been focused on a 10-day program that addresses both groups. In collaboration with Civic Engagement 4.0 of Chulalongkorn University’s Office of International Affairs and Global Network, we successfully ran a two-weekend workshop for 18 worthy Myanmar teachers living precariously in Mae Sot. Many of them are volunteering or working for very low pay in Migrant Learning Centers, and many struggle to obtain the documents they need to attend master’s programs or go to where the jobs are. This was our second year, which allowed us to apply what we had learned when we first offered this program last year. We found the teachers to be deeply grateful to be able to meet others like themselves, to share personal stories, and to learn new teaching techniques.

Five graduates of SENS, including a new participant from Vietnam, whose nickname is Trang, formed the primary work team to run the program under the guidance of SENS director Ted Mayer. They did a splendid job of supporting the Myanmar teachers and making the workshops run smoothly. With their experience in the kind of peer-listening we teach and practice, based in Co-Counseling, they also played the role of support group leaders. Support groups allowed the Myanmar teachers to come back to a familiar group of just four or five people to share their feelings and their experience of the workshop.

In between the two weekends, we offered a dedicated training for the five SENS graduates, who are part of a larger group called ALPS (Apprentice Leaders Program in Sustainability). We met with two top leaders of the International Co-Counseling community, and with a Greek expert on world migration issues. Everyone in the ALPS group had the chance to listen to the life stories and personal journeys of the extraordinary resource people that Michiko Yoshida of the Chulalongkorn team had brought together to support both the Myanmar teachers and the young ALPS leaders. They also received feedback from these accomplished individuals when they presented a poster pitch, basically a project they would like to realize expressed in a single poster. 

Following this workshop we have held a class once a week to share personal updates, study readings together, discuss the world situation, and practice peer-listening in pairs or in small groups. We have also been working towards follow-up programs for the Myanmar teachers.

The next step in the training of the ALPS group will be for those who are available to assist in the running of the SENS 2025 program, which runs from January 12^th to April 5^th. Already at least three of the Myanmar teachers we have worked with in the last two years have applied as students in our SENS 2025 program. We find that this kind of crisscrossing participation helps to build strong relationships, the heart of any network of educators and concerned citizens in Southeast Asia. The work to build the SENS 2025 program has already begun, and ALPS participants are gaining experience in interviewing in such a way that can get to know our applicants well in a short space of time, and choose those who will both benefit and contribute the most to the program.

Thank you so much for reading, and for your support. It’s difficult to watch as violence escalates in parts of the world, and the dangers of the climate crisis become ever more evident, especially in the floods we have seen around the world. It’s great to be able to act, and your support through financial contributions and sharing our story are actions we are truly grateful for.

We wish you peace, safety, and harmony in whatever community you are part of at the moment. May our joint efforts bear good fruit.

With warm wishes,

Ted Mayer

Links:

• Our Website
• Our SENS 2025 Brochure Cover Page