Yinthway Nge in Myanmar means ‘our precious young children’ – a phrase which invariably brings a smile to even the most cynical adult’s face. Yinthway Foundation (YF), a local organization, chose this name to capture its essence: all of the precious young children of Myanmar and their holistic development is its focus. To reach these children, their families, and their communities throughout the country, YF develops the capacity of local partners to implement their own early childhood programs.

Yinthway Foundation is proud of its cultural coherence and the seamless integration of its high impact work in the multi-language and multi-ethnic complexity of Myanmar. The Foundation’s staff and its local partners come from a variety of ethnic and language groups, thereby literally mirroring this complexity. YF fuses the latest international research in the field of early childhood development and education with traditional customs, such as the lullabies, stories, games, and child-rearing practices of these ethnic groups.

This holistic understanding is the foundation of our vision to be an integrative player and a resource center. To give our deep understanding of local and ethnic particularities a concrete face, we advocate, with our partners, for early childhood programs nationwide. These partners are community-based organizations, faith-based groups, and local government. As these partners identify trainers, YF trains them. These trainers, in turn, sensitize leaders and train early childhood teachers, parent educators, and committee members in their own communities. In addition, YF develops a wide range of training materials, parent education materials, and a variety of children’s books, including a series of traditional folk tales, a series of culturally based children’s books, and a series of culturally informed adaptations of western children’s books. Beyond this, YF advises and provides limited financial support to women’s cottage industries so they can produce children’s play and learning materials, which are sold to all ECCD actors. YF also consults with international donors and NGOs about how to channel their efforts in Myanmar. In each of these activities, YF’s goal is to insure high quality ECCD programs.

In doing all of this, YF has become the only resource center for those interested in Early Childhood Care, Development, and Education in Myanmar