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Weaving to the rhythm of The Tea Cup Diaries

2016-02-26T10:00:27+00:00

Weaver and Tea Cup Diary fan at the Manaw Star Weaving company in Myanmar

Slender fingers rhythmically work at the brilliantly-coloured threads; legs undulate like a dancer’s as foot pedals are pushed down - the cloth on the loom growing a little larger each time. The faces of the weavers, covered in pale thanaka paste, scrutinise the next set of motifs in the pattern. Weaving is the craft where colour beats the rhythm. And this is the weaving shed of The Manaw Star Weaving Company.

Come Friday evening at 18:45, the weavers turn on their cheap Chinese radios, hanging from the crossbars of their looms, and tune into Myanmar Radio, the government broadcaster. They are searching for the shrill, sweet sound of a flute, which, after a few phrases, yields to a rich and busy instrumental – this is the signature tune of �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s radio drama, The Teacup Diaries, a sound that touches hearts and silences the chatter of the weaving shed.

The drama – which aims to increase peace and understanding between different ethnic and religious communities in Myanmar – really resonates with the weavers, as my colleagues and I were about to find out.

We were visiting after the weavers had contacted us on Facebook.

We knew they were fans, but nothing could prepare us for their warm greeting as the young weavers surged forward, armed with android phones ready to take selfies with their favourite actors. They were wearing their best clothes and touchingly offered us a feast of snacks and soft drinks.

The Tea Cup Diaries provides a welcome break for these weavers who, for a monthly salary of around $100, work a ten hour day, with only two days off a month.

The weavers travel to Myitkyina in Kachin State in the north of Myanmar, all the way from Shwe Bo in the Dry Zone, where water and jobs are scarce. They send money back to their family every month, together with letters, often describing stories from The Tea Cup Diaries. This is how much they love the drama. Some of the weavers confessed to me that the characters in The Tea Cup Diaries appear in their dreams.

Khet Su Myat (who plays Daw Khin Thit) with fans of the The Tea Cup Diaries

They compete to tell us their favourite stories and people in the drama, but above all, they follow every twist and turn of the story of the teashop owner, U Chit Maung and his wife, Daw Khin Thit.

Soon the weavers were calling for the actors to perform a scene in front of them.

Even though they are tired from travelling, Daw Khet Su Myat (who plays Daw Khin Thit), U Rupa (who plays U Chit Maung) and the other actors, rally round. They perform a scene from the first series, where Daw Khin Thit gets fed up with doing all the work in the teashop. She shouts at U Chit Maung and the young weavers roar in sympathy, but when U Chit Maung produces, with a flourish, a rose for his wife, the audience is equally enthusiastic.

Once the performance is over the questions and comments start. We all tried our best to answer their questions, all the time amazed and happy at their level of engagement, knowledge and understanding of the drama.

In the modern day, technology allows us to have more options than ever for entertainment. We choose what we want and leave what we don’t, but for a group of weavers in Myitkyina the choice is simple: they listen to a radio drama – every bit as colourful as the cloth they weave – and it’s called The Tea Cup Diaries.

Related links:

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Myanmar: seeing emergency information in a new light

2015-08-10T09:53:55+00:00

Men building a raft after August 2015's flooding in Myanmar

In the light of recent floods in Myanmar, also known as Burma, Becky Palmstrom reflects on how the country has strengthened its preparations and response to natural disasters since 2008’s Cyclone Nargis.

Back in 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck the Myanmar coast late one afternoon tearing across the low lying Ayeryarwaddy delta with winds of 215 kilometres an hour.

Later, as the winds and rains reached Yangon, also known as Rangoon, our house was plunged into darkness. When the sounds of breaking glass and screeching winds became too ominous, I retreated beneath my bed. Many people lost their roofs around midnight and then sat out the storm in stairwells or among the debris of their roofless homes.

Meanwhile, it was worse in the delta. Much worse. A combination of hurricane force winds and a storm surge, reaching almost four metres killed almost a hundred and forty thousand people.

Limited warning

In the days preceding the storm, India’s Meteorological Department had warned the Myanmar government that if the cyclone reached the shore, it was going to be bad but the government and media issued very limited information. The New Light of Myanmar newspaper published a short article on its back page asking people to be prepared for rainstorms: wind speeds over 50 kilometres an hour, it said. State radio and TV followed suit. There was little information about how people could prepare and no evacuation or warnings about the possibility of a tidal surge.

A boat destroyed in Myanmar by Cyclone Nargis, 2008.

When the storm exhausted itself I visited the devastated delta region. Every public building was battered and packed with suvivors from nearby villages: a woman from a village that had lost all its children, a man scarred from holding onto a mangrove tree all night. One man was forced to abandon his six-year-old son when he could no longer swim with the boy grasping round his neck.

Lifeline radio

We searched for practical information on local radio but little came. The �鶹Լ�� Burmese service with support from �鶹Լ�� Media Action began broadcasting its ‘Lifeline’ radio show a month after Nargis hit. “Kyanmarye ne Naung ye” (Living Today, Stronger Tomorrow) continued for nine months.

Since that time, so much has changed. The government has made political reforms, formal censorship of the media is over, more humanitarian and development organisations have access to work here, and vitally, the government is now better prepared to respond.

What has not changed is Myanmar’s risk of cyclones and storms.

A shift in emergency communication

We’ve continued to work with key government, media and humanitarian organisations to improve the way they cooperate to get practical information to people affected. Together, we’ve prepared a series of messages prioritised for 24 hours and 7 days after a disaster - covering topics such as health and safety, keeping family members together and advice on minimising stress and anxiety. The messages, specifically for people hit by either an earthquake or a cyclone were tested in advance across the country to make sure they were easy to understand.

Our team in Myanmar working to produce a Lifeline radio show for people affected by the 2015 floods.

Linking Hands to Keep Living

Last week, when the government declared a state of emergency in places hit by some of the worst flooding Myanmar has seen for years, we began sharing prepared messages, reminding media organisations that they could broadcast them too. Within 48 hours, �鶹Լ�� Media Action began working with Myanma Radio’s journalists to produce a twice daily radio show for people. The Lifeline radio programme, called Shin Than Chin Kan Lan Mya (Linking Hands to Keep Living) follows the weather report on every news broadcast. Before the floods 8.2 million people in the affected areas listened to Myanma Radio.

We’ve used the broadcasts to answer questions about whether a local berry is enough to purify water (it isn’t), and how to prepare for evacuation (stick together, ensure children know their village and parents’ names, and bring identification, water and food). The programme is also translated into other languages for non-Burmese speakers.

I still have the New Light of Myanmar news clipping from 2008. It now serves as a reminder of how far Myanmar has come since that difficult time.

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Getting our mojo back with MOELJO

2015-07-07T09:09:43+00:00

One of the MOELJO trainers, Jack, playing the role of a party candidate whilst being interviewed by trainees

One good thing that came from an unsuccessful grant application last year was the seed of an idea for what became our MOELJO course (mobile phone skills and election reporting for journalists).

It was prompted by three big developments in Myanmar’s (also known as Burma) reform process: the opening up of the telecoms market, which seemed set to improve mobile and internet access across the country (in early 2014, mobile phone ownership was estimated to be around 9%); the promise of free and fair elections in 2015; and the loosening of restrictions on the media. This meant that information could be more widely and easily available to voters around the country during the build-up to the polls.

The MOELJO seed grew in my mind in July after I ran a video skills course. I realised that very few of the trainees could afford to buy either the video cameras or (legal) editing software to practice these skills.

Most of them, however, had smartphones.

Using smartphones

So in September, with the welcome arrival of another trainer, the tech-savvy Jack Aung, the team began to investigate what we could do with android smartphones and apps commonly available in Myanmar. We also researched what election training journalists most needed. The country has limited experience of how elections are run and the rules and circumstances of the 2015 poll will be different from those in 2010 or the 2012 by-election.

The seed grew into a shoot, and by January 2015, it was a healthy sapling. We launched our first course in Mawlamyine, teaching 25 journalists from Mon, Tanintharyi and Kayin states. Since then, with the addition of another great trainer, Phyo Wai Lin, MOELJO has branched out with four more sessions, taking in trainees from Bago, Sagaing and Mandalay regions and Chin and Kachin states.

Election training

On the course, trainees learn how to take better photos, audio and video with their smartphones and share their material. Election training includes discussions with Election Commission officials, senior journalists and CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) and representatives involved in voter education or election monitoring. The final day sees trainees reporting on fictional election scenarios using their smartphones. This involves a cast of up to 15 extras and is like directing live theatre. Exhausting but fun!

One of the MOELJO trainers interviewing an extra - playing the role of a farmer

Some struggle with the technical skills. One trainee told us: "Mobile skills are difficult for older people like me. But now, I know those skills. In addition, I learned how to produce a TV news story with mobile phone”.

Editing on the go

Another trainee showed us a report on a protest which he had filmed and edited alone on his smartphone after our course - and sent it to the newsroom while the demonstration was still going on. To put this into context, with communications and infrastructure in Myanmar still poor in many areas, TV news from the regions can be days old by the time it gets broadcast. Sometimes footage is even sent by bus!

It’s too early to know what impact the training will have on the media’s coverage of the elections, scheduled for November. But the feedback from trainees has been positive and we have had offers of funding to run more such courses.

More than a cup of tea

2015-05-26T11:27:45+00:00

Tea Cup Diaries - cast, crew and donors

There’s more to a cup of tea than meets the eye - it’s not just wet, hot and thirst quenching, it’s also a media vehicle for promoting tolerance and social inclusion.

This week, �鶹Լ�� Media Action Burma proudly launched its new weekly radio drama, The Tea Cup Diaries (in Burmese La Pa Ye Ta Kwe Ye Diari), to an audience of 120 people including the media, our donors, USAID’s Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI) and broadcast partner, Myanmar TV Channel (MRTV).

Launches are never easy - I’ve done a few. They involve an incredible amount of work, however you cut it: branding, logos, publicity materials, guests, finding a location and deciding how much audio and video to include. There’s also diplomacy and etiquette to consider: who should speak and in what order?

All in all, the run-up to a launch is defined by simmering anxiety and last minute panics. But there’s no doubt that a launch event is an efficient way of announcing to the world a new media project.

House of Memories

The launch of The Tea Cup Diaries took place at the beautiful and ancient House of Memories, where around 70 years ago, Aung San Suu Kyi’s father secretly met fellow nationalists to plot the overthrow of British colonial rule. It’s now a restaurant but retains the patina of old age in its wooden structure and captures the past in a gallery of old photos.

By contrast, our drama is set in a hum drum tea shop, decked out with the usual small plastic tables and chairs. It’s run by a dreamy but eloquent man and his sharp tongued but industrious wife. Their children have reached the age where anything seems possible and the practical demands of being in the catering industry holds little charm.

The teashop staff have their own problems. The Tea Master, an unfit, former martial arts regional champion, detests the weight-lifting cook and the waiters tease each other endlessly.

Why a teashop?

But why a drama set in a teashop? Well, teashops are one of the few institutions in Myanmar (also known as Burma) patronised by all, irrespective of religion and ethnic identity. Everyone likes a cup of tea.

The drama is funded to support peace and inclusion. These concepts cannot remain hovering above the project as glorious abstractions; they have to be rooted in the reality of people’s lives. If our characters sound a bit quarrelsome, bear in mind peace has no meaning without exploring the conflict and resolution that precedes it. So, the teashop is where inclusion, conflict and peace all get played out in an entertaining and realistic way.

As the deadline for guests drew near, we were challenged alternately by sound without pictures, then pictures without sound. But in the end everything fell into place with minutes to spare. The guests came, they talked, they laughed, they drank and ate, and they went, each taking away a branded cup and diary, along with a CD of the drama. The donor and broadcast partner were happy.

Just as important, the Media was interested in our programme and Lead Producer, Maung Maung Swe, was interviewed by Kamayut Media and MRTV 4, scriptwriter, L.Lay Min Pyae Mon was interviewed by MITV, while fellow scriptwriter, Yu Ya was interviewed by MRTV. The Myanmar Times wrote a generously illustrated article.

The launch is over; the fun is finished. Now the real work begins. We’re on the production treadmill, which will only stop in October, writing, recording and editing one episode a week. But at least we’ve spread the word and put The Teacup Diaries firmly on the media map in Myanmar.

Episode one broadcast 15 May 2015 on Myanma Athein/MRTV. The drama will run for 26 episodes between now and November 2015.

Find out more about �鶹Լ�� Media Action work in Myanmar

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Burma: a brighter future?

2014-04-30T07:41:04+00:00

I'm just back from Burma, also known as Myanmar, where I met the team who put together radio show Lin Lat Kyair Sin (Bright Young Stars). Designed for a new era in the country, it offers an unprecedented opportunity for young people to exchange ideas and talk to each other.

The 18-35 age range of the production crew matches its audience. Project Coordinator Yan Htaik Seng is passionate about the way the programme works: “We are challenging social norms and discussing issues that were unheard of [before]: women's rights, gay rights, talking about what democracy means, encouraging people to get active and involved."

"In one programme on disability we profiled a 13-year old girl from the Delta region. She managed to get medical treatment for her paralysed legs [through one of our non-governmental organisation partners Actionaid] and gained enough mobility to attend school."

"She got so much out of her new-found education and her love of books that she organised a mobile library that could fit on a small boat. She would row to neighbouring villages taking the books with her."

Uncertain future

The new-found opportunity to share information and participate in community life is tempered by concerns about how deep and sustainable this new period of openness really can be. With elections set for 2015, will it last?

The heavily censorial and prohibitive past is a recent memory. "When I was a boy I lived in fear," Yan says. "Talk of democracy didn’t mean freedom, it meant jail. In my family we didn’t have electricity nor access to information. I didn't know what was happening in another part of the country, let alone the world. My parents told not to be curious, and that life would be easier if I didn’t ask questions."

A new generation

But Yan was curious. He got hold of books and would watch TV at a neighbour's house. When high school beckoned, he persuaded his father to allow him to leave his childhood home in the remote Sian state on the border of Thailand and China, which he describes as "a dark world, much cut off".

He moved in with an uncle in the capital Yangon and his life started to open up. When the devastating Cyclone Nargis hit in 2008, he volunteered for relief work in the flattened Delta region.

"It really changed me. I’m not a medic but I was able to provide basic food and support. There was no access to healthcare and people just didn't know what to do or how to take care of themselves, they were too poor to go to hospital."

"Two things especially struck me: there was a child in a broken hut. The structure was very weak. Until I saw this I hadn’t realised people were that poor – that they couldn’t even afford basic food or shelter. I realised at that moment that I had had no awareness of life as it was being lived for so many."

"The other lasting image was of dead bodies and of people in shock. I thought people would be crying but they were actually numb. It led me to explore how I might help. First I joined a youth group and we started to try and educate people about basic but important things. And then it brought me to �鶹Լ�� Media Action."

LLKS' Yan Htaik Seng.

Hope for change

It's stories like these, illustrating a new sense of agency and action on the part of a young and more optimistic generation, that makes LLKS so powerful.

Ahead of the elections set for 2015 the programme is showing people change is possible.

Both the girl in the boat of books and Yan in his relief work in the Delta embody the spirit of Bright Young Stars and help sustain hopes that a new era has begun.

Related links

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Burma

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Bringing creativity to the table

2013-12-06T16:18:05+00:00

Recording radio programme Lin Lat Kyair Sin (Bright Young Stars) in a Rangoon park, Burma.

A professor of mine used to say that storytelling is like getting a child to eat something they don’t like, such as spinach. In order to get an audience to learn something, you must cook the most delicious dishes. This is how good journalists make us care about places we’ve never been to and people we’ve never met. The analogy is never truer than with �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s work where the ‘spinach’ we serve up is measured to see if we’re reaching our donor’s often ambitious and difficult goals.

Our recent creativity and innovation workshop Ignite Asia was all about sharing the tastiest recipes from �鶹Լ�� Media Action teams in India, Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Deep Gauchan from our Phnom Penh office in Cambodia told us one of his simplest recipes. “It is to put an ordinary person into extraordinary circumstances.” He said. “Or, to take someone extraordinary and put them somewhere ordinary.” Along the way, he argued, your audience is taken out of their own experience and problems to learn something new.

Surprising storytelling

We also had a fantastic line-up of guest speakers to inspire us. The Times of India blew us away with their campaign films: A Day in the Life of India, India vs. India to ILead India. When asked how they nurture such creativity in an organisation with 175 years of heritage and tradition, their answer was “You must be willing to fail. You must reward people for trying and only punish people if they don’t try.”

Abhijit Chauhuri and Arindam Mitra from QED Films are certainly trying. By subverting convention and searching for a unique tone of voice, they told us, you can find drama, suspense, a beginning, middle and end and along the way surprises, twists, the delight of new settings, new journeys and universal themes.

Bollywood song-writer, journalist and radio host Neelesh Misra also came to share his tips. He described the difference between sharing experiences and sharing information. “Be as visual as possible,” he explained. “Take me on a journey.” In other words, people learn not from being told something, but by being shown it, by emotionally connecting to an experience, a character or a moment.

From idea to reality?

It was then the turn of my colleague Yan Htaik Seng and I to flex our collective creative muscles and build on what we’d learned. Our challenge was to come up with a way to promote economic development in Burma. (I told you our goals were ambitious.)

And after a lot of brainstorming, what took shape was a reality TV show called Myanma Bandai (Myanmar’s Goal), .

Our idea was that it could be a nationwide competition to find three young wannabe teams of entrepreneurs from Burma’s countryside and help them bring their product to market. Each episode would begin with a team challenge that would teach audiences about new business regulations, how to write business plans and most importantly inspire confidence.

Tasty new recipe

Just as I was getting excited about how rural audiences would vote for their favourite team, Yan interrupted. He said couldn’t visualise it. He said he’d only ever seen reality shows in the form of singing competitions. “Big Brother? The Apprentice? The Amazing Race?” I asked. He shook his head.

It reminded me of something Yvonne McPherson, who heads up �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s New York office, said in her discussion about how innovation happens.

“If you had asked people what they wanted,” said Henry Ford on the invention of the car, “they would have said faster horses." Our audiences are at the heart of everything we do, so research to understand them and to test our product works is vital and is always part of our work. But, this has to work alongside truly innovative thinking.

After an initiation into the ‘reality TV’ format, Yan agreed that this show might work in Burma.

We are currently pitching it to donors and after much sharing of experiences, ideas and lessons from each of our respective countries, my colleagues and I have returned with some tasty new recipes.

Related links

�鶹Լ�� Media Action in Burma

The challenges of conducting research in Burma

2013-11-22T10:54:00+00:00

"Where in the past we were bound tightly by ten ropes, nowadays I feel like the number of ropes has been reduced by two.” These were the words of an elderly man who earlier this year took part in a �鶹Լ�� Media Action focus group in Burma (also known as Myanmar).

He was speaking from Yangon where there have been palpable changes in freedom of expression and access to information in recent times. Public demonstrations are now permitted more often, low-cost SIM cards are improving people’s access to information on mobiles and 11 new daily newspapers have launched - some carrying strong opposition views.

But for the majority of Burma’s population – who live in rural areas, did not finish secondary education and have more limited access to media – day-to-day life has not changed in any radical way.

Research challenge

As a researcher working to inform media projects to support improved governance in Burma, understanding the extent to which the public feels they are informed and able to speak, question and take action is crucial.

But the irony in conducting research of this kind is that the restrictions people perceive to remain around freedom of expression and association influence how they react when posed with questions on these themes.

Our research and learning team realised the extent of this challenge in Burma, while conducting our research earlier this year.

From May to July, we took a multi-methods approach to a study that sought to understand the issues of concern to the public; their expectations of leaders; perceptions of accountability and opportunities and barriers to engage in dialogue and take action on issues of local importance.

The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods, conducting a nationally representative household survey of 1224 people, as well as focus group discussions and key informant interviews in communities across five of Burma’s 14 states and regions. The Yangon resident quoted above was one of more than 220 people who actively participated in such discussions.

Conflicting findings

While participants in focus groups engaged in lively discussions about the shortcomings of health, education and water and sanitation services in their communities, 32% of the survey participants said that they ‘did not know’ about any matter of concern to people in their local area.

Focus groups revealed that in some rural areas people were confused about whether the government or an INGO should be responsible for public service provision, and that most villages had no interaction with their local authorities beyond requests sent down through village administrators to “raise funds”. In contrast, 70% of rural survey participants told us that their local government did indeed respond to the needs of citizens.

So what do these conflicting sources of data tell us about the realities of a Burma in transition - and how best to research the public’s experience?

The cautious answer: ‘I don’t know’

The first takeaway is a sense check on where and when large-scale survey research can have value in Burma right now.

Do 32% of people in Burma really not have an opinion on what’s causing concern for people in their own communities? We are not convinced and feedback from the field provides several reasons why responses like this are more likely to be avoidance than lack of awareness.

Field interviewers describe participants’ cautious reactions to the survey experience, and to particular questions. Some participants showed caution in expressing an opinion on social or political themes, some caution in expressing an opinion to a stranger, and others caution in expressing an opinion at all.

In a country where people have been actively discouraged from expressing opinions for decades, ‘I don’t know’ is a very easy way to avoid making statements that might draw unwanted attention - despite assurances that the process is confidential and anonymous.

Willingness to respond

Tracking shifts in people’s willingness and ability to respond to questions like these in the future will reveal a lot about the public sense of confidence and capacity to play a role in the political landscape.

Freedom metrics included in the survey provide an internal benchmark too. Ask the public how free they think they are to say what they think and 68% will tell you that they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very free’.

But qualify that statement to freedom to express ‘views about the government in public’, and the figure drops to 43%, with 25% saying they do not know. The caution exercised for some but not other survey questions suddenly makes more sense.

As a means to understand media consumption and the most effective ways to reach marginalised groups however, the survey is a useful tool. Ask people how often they watch television and response rates jump back to 99%.

Multi-method is the way to go

The data demonstrates also the value of a multi-method approach. Where the quantitative survey required data collectors to ask questions in households where they were strangers, our qualitative study took a more participatory approach.

Through a continuing partnership with ActionAid Myanmar, we trained young community mobilisers to facilitate in-depth discussions in villages where they are known and trusted by the inhabitants.

Facilitators were able to create a safe space where respondents were at their ease, probe gradually to draw out explanations beyond surface respondents, and break down unfamiliar concepts - such as who is ‘accountable’ for community development - into hyper-local terms.

The resulting data provides rich insights into people’s engagement with and expectations of governance processes, and aids interpretation of the big numbers coming from the survey.

For example, where a survey statistic alone would suggest that people are quite satisfied with their local government’s level of responsiveness (69%), the focus groups revealed that people had very low expectations of local government to provide anything in the first place. When expectations are low, criticism will be too.

We do need to recognise that young mobilisers may already have influenced political awareness and attitudes in communities like these, and so may set those people apart from the wider population in some way. However the insights that can be gained from people confident enough to exercise voice in a research setting are invaluable in a country where so little data on the individual experience of governance exists.

Value of participatory approaches

Our elderly Yangon resident went on to say: "We have started to have the right to speak freely. In the past, we didn't tell each other as we didn't trust each other. We just suffered alone. But now we have started to discuss bravely whether what we feel or think is right or wrong."

If his view rings true for how people in Burma will adapt to their changing political context, it may be that large-scale surveys will become powerful tools to inform governance work in the future.

In the meantime, however, researchers should be looking to partner with communities themselves to draw on the strengths that qualitative, in-depth, personal approaches can offer.

Related links

Research Summary: Exploring Burma's media

�鶹Լ�� Media Action’s work in Burma

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Making a world debate local

2013-06-14T09:25:20+00:00

It might not have made the international headlines. It didn't even feature famous names such as Aung San Suu Kyi. But a national TV and radio debate in Burma last week broke new ground in a country that is experiencing dizzying changes on an almost daily basis.

At the World Economic Forum for East Asia, the �鶹Լ�� debate brought together members of the government, the leading opposition party (NLD) and Mizzima, a formerly exiled media group, to answer questions about whether the country’s economic growth would really trickle down and improve the lives of all, rather than just the elite.

The debate, moderated by Soe Win Than of the �鶹Լ�� Burmese Service, took place in a gleaming conference centre in Naypyidaw, the country's vast, empty capital built five hours north of the country's most populous city, Rangoon.

But the voice of ordinary Burmese men and women was heard loud and clear through vox-pops recorded by the production team of �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s youth radio programme, Lin Lat Kyair Sin (Bright Young Stars).

"If we work, then we eat"

The vox-pops featured people like a motor-cycle taxi driver in Rangoon who said that Burma's much celebrated economic transformation has had no positive effect yet on his own daily life. "For people like us, there is no change," he said. "No change because if we work today, then we eat today."

The government representative on the panel was challenged by questions on issues of corruption, lack of investment in rural communities and energy supply. A day labourer, for example, asked, "Myanmar doesn't get enough electricity so why do you sell [energy] to our neighbours? When will Myanmar get electricity?"

A woman who runs a flower stall in Htauk Kyat Market on the outskirts of Rangoon also took the chance to urge government ministers to find out what was really going on in the country.

"In order to help people who really suffer," she said. "The country minister should come down, check and analyse every quarter (of the township). They should share the feeling of what is happening in the quarter."

National coverage

The debate – conducted and broadcast in Burmese on the national TV network SkyNet and on the �鶹Լ�� Burmese service – is a huge and encouraging leap forward for �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s work in the country.

Behind the scenes at the debate in Naypyidaw.

Since April last year, we've reached out directly to Burma's next generation with LLKS, our youth civic education programme broadcast on the �鶹Լ�� Burmese service.

This year, we've been working with MRTV, the state broadcaster, to improve the quality of information they provide to Burmese audiences. And we will continue to build the capacity of working journalists across the country to ensure that as the media opens up, they are prepared to report on issues accurately and ethically.

Watershed moment

It was MRTV journalists, trained by �鶹Լ�� Media Action, who were responsible for yet another of last week's ground-breaking events.

After Thursday's WEF sessions, Aung San Suu Kyi held a press conference in English where she repeated her desire to run for president – a declaration that she had made that day on the �鶹Լ�� World Debate programme.

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's trainer in Burma, Bill Hayton, requested that she repeat her statement in Burmese. She did so and the clip made it into that evening's Lively News, a new news and current affairs show on Myanmar Radio, and was part of the next day's news bulletins on MRTV.

It was a watershed moment for the state broadcaster MRTV to broadcast not only a political statement from Aung San Suu Kyi but her declaration, in Burmese, of her desire to run for the presidency.

But then in today's Burma, it seems, watershed moments are a daily occurrence.

Related links

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Burma

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's blogs on Burma

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Burma's Bright Young Stars

2012-11-13T15:32:42+00:00

Recording radio programme Lin Lat Kyair Sin (Bright Young Stars) in a Rangoon park

"We would never have dreamed of doing this a year ago."

That's what one young Burmese journalist told me after spending the day recording a �鶹Լ�� radio programme in a popular park in Rangoon. The recording saw 12 journalists and more than 20 guests and audience members come together in Kandawgyi Park. The show, Lin Lat Kyair Sin (Bright Young Stars), is aimed at young adults and tackled the pressing issue of getting information to ethnic minorities and hard-to-reach communities across the whole of Burma.

In Burma, known by its own government as Myanmar, such a public display of media freedom would have been unheard until very recently. It could in the past have led to the arrest of those involved. Even as late as January of this year, Burma was ranked 169th out of 179 nations in terms of press freedom by the media watchdog group Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF).

Headlines around the world have heralded the remarkable political and economic changes happening in Burma. The reforms to the media are striking. For nearly 50 years all media in the country was kept under tight control. Every word broadcast or printed was closely monitored and censored, even song lyrics and fairy tales. Most foreign media, including the �鶹Լ��, was banned. Over the past two years the Government has been taking a slow march towards media freedom. In August this year they abolished pre-publication censorship of the country's media.

Journalists in Burma have welcomed the reforms unanimously but remain cautiously optimistic. Many repressive laws still exist under which journalists can be punished for writing material which angers or offends the government. When I visited in June this year there was a palpable fear that a reversal of reforms was possible.

However now, in November, there are no suggestions of reversals. "The changes have been too big, we've gone too far now to turn back," they say. Instead, the journalists are looking to the future of media in Burma and examining what needs to be achieved in media regulation.

�鶹Լ�� Media Action is working with young journalists in the country on a range of skills, focusing on building their capacity as radio journalists. As a media trainer with the Burma Horizons project I have spent these past few weeks working with local journalists on their broadcast skills.

Many of the trainees come from a print background so reporting for radio is a new concept. The journalists have worked extensively on how to record and edit a sound-rich radio feature. There was lots of laughter when I introduced Burmese tongue-twisters and the humming of local songs as part of the training to aid their presentation skills.

They are an inspirational group who, despite having had little or no training in journalism, are determined to lead the spread of information in this emerging democracy.

Burma is changing but there is still a long way to go. It's hard to overstate just how many challenges Burma is facing. One-third of the nation lives below the poverty line. The basic infrastructure is massively lacking. The vast majority of the population don’t have access to adequate healthcare.

However despite the obstacles my time here with these brilliant young journalists makes me optimistic about Burma's future. This generation of journalist will undoubtedly be influential not only reporting on, but also in shaping the new Burma.

Burma: It’s unpredictable

�鶹Լ�� Media Action’s work in Burma

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�鶹Լ�� Media Action in Burma: new beginnings

2012-09-13T09:44:20+00:00

The streets of the Burmese capital Naypyidaw.

The streets of the forbidding Burmese capital Naypyidaw are a monument to brute political power. The city is a grandiose building project, plonked in the middle of nowhere, as if the government was telling its people, "We don't care what you think of what we spend on ourselves."

But within this bizarre place we found an apparently astonishing transformation in the politicians who now claim they are moving rapidly to introduce democracy and wish "to truly transform the state broadcaster to become a public service broadcaster". If they are true to their word and the changes they promise happen, it would be remarkable.

A small joint team from the �鶹Լ�� World Service Burmese language section and �鶹Լ�� Media Action recently carried out a fact-finding visit to Burma, known by its own government as Myanmar. My colleagues Tin Htar Swe, Kathryn Tomlinson and myself discovered a media scene scarcely able to believe the change that is in prospect, mindful of the repression journalism has suffered for decades and fearful that the government's promises may not be realised.

Local journalists told us of the past threats they had received from military intelligence and colleagues who are still imprisoned. Reporters and editors are now having to adjust to the recent ending of pre-publication censorship. We were shown proofs of magazines with the censor’s red pen scrawled over sections of stories which had to be published without the offending text.

Although pre-publication censorship has gone, the government still imposes firm guidelines on sensitive story areas such as security and the problems of ethnic minorities. Journalists no longer know where the limits are. As one said to us, "We do not know how free we are."

Above all, among print and broadcast journalists there is a sense of bewilderment that after years of rules and threats they may now be required to make more editorial judgements for themselves. And they are looking to the �鶹Լ�� for advice. People in Burma have throughout the 50 years of repression listened to the �鶹Լ�� in vast numbers as the most trusted source of news. Now the media community expects the �鶹Լ�� to assist them in this next stage.

Fortunately, �鶹Լ�� Media Action is well placed to respond. Supported by funds from the UK’s Department for International Development and other donors, we have put together a package of training and development for the broadcast sector. And the Ministry of Information has given Media Action unprecedented permission to open a project office to deliver all of the training package we proposed. If all goes to plan, we will be offering long term support to state and commercial broadcasters to help their journalists and managers improve standards. This will not just be technical training, but the full range of �鶹Լ�� editorial and values training - an absolute precondition for us working in any country.

Once �鶹Լ�� Media Action is established in Burma, we will look to develop editorial capacity beyond the news sector, for instance by producing dramas or documentaries that provide information that can help to inform citizens' choices in a county that is desperately impoverished and unequal. �鶹Լ�� Media Action will be talking urgently with our partners and grant givers to explore the potential for programming to help the promised transformation in Burma.

Although there are encouraging signs, the �鶹Լ�� will watch developments here vigilantly. We will be determined to ensure that our training is taken seriously and really alters practice on the ground. And, of course, our �鶹Լ�� News and �鶹Լ�� World Service programmes will continue to test all sides of opinion in Burma, including the government’s. We are forever committed to the independent and impartial journalism that has given the �鶹Լ�� such trust among audiences in Burma.

Related links

Burma: “It’s unpredictable”

Youth show launches for Burma

Go back to �鶹Լ�� Media Action

Burma: "It's unpredictable"

2012-09-12T11:02:25+00:00

The Shwedegon pagoda in Burma.

�鶹Լ�� Media Action, the �鶹Լ��’s international development charity, together with the �鶹Լ��’s Global News division is on a fact-finding mission to Burma to negotiate the �鶹Լ��’s presence in the country for the first time in decades.

"It's unpredictable."

These were the first words of the CEO of a weekly Burmese newspaper, speaking to Peter Horrocks (Director, �鶹Լ�� Global News), Tin Htar Swe (South Asia Hub and Burmese Service Editor) and me (Regional Director, Asia at �鶹Լ�� Media Action), as we sat in his sixth floor office sipping sweet coffee, having asked him what he thought of the current situation for the media in Burma.

Peter, Swe and I are in Burma – or Myanmar, as it is known by its government, – to meet the Ministry of Information. We had been invited to submit proposals for training, opening an office, and distribution of �鶹Լ�� content, and were following up with a visit. Before driving the five hours to Naypyidaw, Burma's capital city since 2006, we spent two days in Rangoon meeting a range of media actors and getting to know the country, closed to so many for so long.

Media changes are coming thick and fast in Burma. In the week before our visit, the Minister of Information was replaced, as was the Deputy. Both moves have been welcomed by the journalists we met, as the old minister was seen as less reform-minded. The new minister has already promised to re-write the forthcoming Media Law, allow publication of independent daily newspapers and re-institute his predecessor's short-lived Press Council with a greater representation of journalists.

Shortly before this, on 20 August the Censor Board ceased to operate having previously declared that it would no longer censor print media pre-publication. All the print journalists agreed that this was a positive step, and had made their lives considerably easier. One team showed us the censored text in an article about a land dispute written in late 2011. They also showed us the front page, photo-laden article they finally published on the same story in August 2012, just after the cessation of censorship. The contrast is stark. Yet post-publication censorship is still a distinct possibility, and no-one is entirely sure how far they can push the boundaries.

We have discussed with many of those we have met the need for journalists and other media practitioners to set their own rules when the rules are not set for them. This does not mean self-censorship, but a commitment to editorial values of impartiality, balance and accuracy, to ensure that the media does not itself take sides. This is an essential part of what makes the �鶹Լ�� the respected entity that it is, and a core aspect of training that we hope to undertake in the country.

After a long day of exciting, productive, informative meetings, Swe took Peter and I to visit the Shwedegon pagoda, the 2500-year-old enormous golden stupa that stands above the city. It is astounding. Swe told us stories of spending long days in the temple in her childhood, happily playing hide and seek with her cousins as her grandmother paid the barest of attention.

This is only Swe’s second visit to her native Burma in 20 years; the first was in January 2012. She offered to take my photo, saying, "You never know when you will be back at the Shwedegon pagoda." A little later I did the same for her, repeating her admonishment, which is perhaps far more poignant for her than me.

But my favourite memory of our visit was of a brown-toothed elderly guard gently moving Swe into position to show her how to see the changing colours reflecting off the ring embedded in the very top of the golden peak. Her laughter, the guard’s delight at our wonder, my astonishment as this tiny reflection far up on the stupa did indeed turn yellow, green, blue as I followed her steps…

Burma. It's unpredictable.

Related links

Youth show launches for Burma

A 'smile from the land of hope'

�鶹Լ�� Burmese Service's programme LLKS on Facebook

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Youth show launches for Burma

2012-04-27T13:04:56+00:00

Presenters of new Burmese youth show Lin Lat Kyair Sin, Thang Kim and Eei Eiko

My name is Thang Kim and I present Lin Lat Kyair Sin ('Young Stars With Shining Futures'), a new 15-minute weekly radio programme for young people on the �鶹Լ��'s Burmese Service. There are so many important subjects that Burmese people can now begin to explore and express for themselves. With this programme, we're giving young people the opportunity to discuss and debate the issues that concern their future.

This year finally witnessed an end to the military regime we have had since the 1960s. Following the general election at the end of 2010, the military political system has been replaced with a more civilian administration. The new system is modelled on what the government calls 'disciplined democracy' and has raised many new challenges – beginning a fledgling democracy is a steep learning curve for us. Ordinary citizens have been so used to not being allowed to speak out, so how do they begin to know how this new era can benefit them?

While preparing for the show over the last couple of months, we have got to know the changing world of Burmese young people. We want Lin Lat Kyair Sin to be a platform that genuinely responds to young people and motivates them to pursue their dreams.
Radio reaches far in Burma. The government's tolerance around people being able to discuss and share information appears to be genuine, at least for the moment. More freedom of expression exists now than a year ago and people are becoming more willing to talk openly. We hope that our very own 'Young Stars with Shining Futures' will be taking part in the weekly programmes.

Our country is facing so many challenges and the radio show offers a space where people can share ideas, and we hope, start to come up with solutions.

A lack of access to education and high unemployment are serious problems for us. In the first episode, we have asked people from around the country what jobs they would most like to do. Businessman/woman, an NGO worker or a singer came out top. We then spoke to people doing these jobs to find out how they got there. We also explored how to boost your employability by talking to an apprentice car mechanic outside Toungoo in central Burma, and to library users in Rangoon who are trying to extend their education through adult learning. It's all about helping the listeners and those who take part share ideas and find solutions for themselves – there's nothing quite like it in Burma!

All of the radio content is underpinned by reseach and it's research that has been delivered by some amazing trainees that have been working with �鶹Լ�� Media Action to enhance their media skills. As well as producing the radio show, we are also training young journalists on the ground. They contribute to the programme by recording stories from the 'stars' in their communities.

The weekly programme has a Facebook page where we will be in touch with our audience between programmes, making sure we get their views and ideas for upcoming topics.

If people want a voice in running a democracy we need to make those voices heard.
Join our conversation on �鶹Լ�� Burmese for every Saturday evening broadcast, or contact us at on Facebook.

Go back to the �鶹Լ�� Media Action website

A 'smile from the land of hope'

2012-04-10T12:36:54+00:00

Senior Research Manager Lizz Frost Yocum reflects on the changes in Burma/Myanmar and the findings of our new survey on youth and media in the country.

Among my many treasured travel mementoes is a small square of perspex hanging from a chain. It is a keyring which depicts a lady, The Lady, Aung San Suu Kyi. It was given to me in January this year by a young Burmese man who I trained to be a researcher for a study of youth and media in Burma. As he showed it to me and his fellow students during a workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand (a safer place to deliver the training and to discuss the research than across the nearby border in Burma). He spoke of changes, admiration, and hope. But he also emphasised the need to be cautious, and he explained that his gift was only a small object because, although such images of the national heroine could now be shown, seen and sold, he still felt nervous about authorities finding it among his belongings.

The recent by-elections in the country saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party win a limited number of seats and people were out on the streets celebrating publicly in joyous scenes.

It was wonderful to see such festivities, as only a few weeks ago I had been in Burma for a second workshop. My colleague’s caution from January had stayed with me and despite obvious signs of positive change, I was wary too. When I left the country that second time, I had not acquired a collection of the now ubiquitous Aung Sung Suu Kyi T-shirts for my suitcase, just a red ribbon with the gold NLD fighting peacock embossed to mark the then-imminent elections.

Last Sunday I followed the election news with bated breath and hoped that is was not all to be a colossal, cruel April Fool’s joke. I’ve exhaled now. This week, I received countless fantastic photos on Facebook – I also got an email confirming progress on our study’s analysis and a call to discuss it later this week. It was signed off, ‘Smile from the land of hope’.

Across the years, access to our audiences in Burma has been a major challenge for our work here at �鶹Լ�� Media Action.

In 2005, when we did the Voices of Burma survey, the �鶹Լ��’s first ever national study of the country’s audience (or almost national, we had to exclude some areas where there were conflicts and curfews, and were able to work in only three languages), I could not even meet or acknowledge the research agency that had bravely surveyed more than 3000 people. The researchers had collated data about peoples’ lives, aspirations, key concerns, priorities, society and government services. I travelled below the radar to Yangon to present the findings privately to a select group of trusted development representatives.

Several years later, it seemed that an already restrictive operating environment had become even worse, when we faced challenges delivering our Lifeline Radio programming in response to Cyclone Nargis. Our information needs assessments – essential to help plan content for broadcasts - were limited to telephone interviews with NGO contacts, and even some of them were cautious about what they shared with us.

Though our recent work has focused on youth and media, we’ve been able to explore another essential access issue, that of access to information – and the lack thereof. And – in a sign of changes taking place - I was able to travel into Burma for that second workshop, where we started our analysis of the study findings.

Some changes were obvious upon my arrival: a glassy new airport and a few mobile phones. The Lonely Planet guidebook I’d used in 2005 showed Aung Sung Suu Kyi ‘s house as off limits in a closed militarised zone; now it, as well as the National League for Democracy (NLD) office, is on the tourist circuit.

The study, like Voices of Burma, again strove to be inclusive, this time working with the Burmese, Shan and Karen youth researchers we trained, and going into urban youth groups and rural communities. And again, we worked within careful agreements about not naming the organisations, researchers or communities involved the study.

As we looked at the data, we found some things have not changed: still the same is the intense pride and privation. Burmese people in 2005 and again in 2012 expressed a deep love for their country, its beauty, traditional way of life, their culture, religion and hospitality. Unchanged were the incredibly low standards of living they described, with rural communities still contending with very poor roads, inaccessible education and no electricity. Alongside these were the same high aspirations for education and justice, albeit expressed differently and a bit more openly than in 2005, and very firm practical concerns about livelihoods and opportunities. (This time, we know how our sample was shaped by the migration of many rural men away from their homes to work, and where the prospects were not always kind; in 2005, we could not gauge this.)

As for changes, young people noted that the political situation was changing to more democratic processes and there were starting to be more freedoms, but they were still to reach them at ‘bottom’ level and it is still quite new: ‘The snake changes its skin, but it’s the same snake’ and ‘A blind person has just regained his sight’. Unlike before, and a sign that some people are starting to feel able to speak out, others volunteered that they were not proud of how the country was governed, the lack of jobs, and vulnerabilities of social injustice and disadvantages they had experienced.

In terms of access to information, we found that there were marked geographical information divides. Urban youth in our study used multiple information sources, including Facebook, TV, print journals and some radio to get news. By contrast, in rural locations, sources of news were much more limited: radio, TV and word of mouth. When we asked about ten recent news stories, in some rural communities, most people had heard nothing about them at all!

We are still analysing the results and the data is rich. The research has put us in touch with the young audience we want to communicate with. We hope it is the start of a long and open conversation.

The programme Lin Lat Kyair Sing (roughly translated ‘Young Stars with a Bright Shining Future’) is to be launched on the �鶹Լ��’s Burmese Service on 28 April.