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By Asia Education Review Team , Friday, 01 August 2025 09:40:32 AM

JRS Empowers Displaced Communities Through Teacher Training

    • Volunteer teachers in Myanmar, Malaysia, and Thailand are transforming crisis-hit communities through education amidst displacement and conflict.
    • Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) has empowered educators like Hansa, Mu, and Lamai through training, helping them restore hope and resilience in children.
    • Despite limited resources and ongoing turmoil, these teachers are building stable learning spaces that promote healing, peace, and future rebuilding.

    Amidst displacement and conflict, education is an anchor of hope not only for children, but for the teachers as well, who help ensure continuity, avoid dropouts, and prepare the next generation to rebuild their nations. Throughout Myanmar and neighbouring countries, volunteer teachers are rising up, frequently under the toughest conditions, to help provide education to displaced children.

    Hansa, a volunteer instructor in Myanmar, has been spending the last two years of her life engaging children in learning despite the turmoil they are surrounded by. She was not familiar with instructional techniques at first but became more confident after receiving training in instructional materials, classroom organization, and the psychology of children. Now, her capacity to provide a stable and secure learning environment has also served to deeply influence her students, who are learning to succeed even in makeshift classrooms with scarce resources.

    In Malaysia, Mu's experience as a teacher has been characterized by deep personal turmoil. After leaving the classroom out of despair and disillusionment, she spent months alone questioning the mission of education in a world torn apart by conflict. Her breakthrough was meeting up with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Malaysia, which restored her sense of meaning. Witnessing the resilience of her students encouraged her to abandon the self-destructive thinking and rediscover meaning in teaching a venue where, even in the midst of outer disorder, she finds belonging and inner peace.

    Also Read: The Impact of Teacher Training Programs on Educational Quality

    Lamai, who escaped from Myanmar in 2014, took shelter in the Karenni camp in Thailand. Her aspiration for tertiary education was delayed, but a teacher training program by JRS in 2016 changed her life. The training gave her updated teaching techniques and mediation skills, empowering her to create a peaceful environment both at school and within the home. Throughout the years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, she stood firm in her position, imparting her knowledge and helping to build resilience among her people through education.

    These accounts demonstrate the ways in which, even in disaster, education can be an effective tool for healing, empowerment, and lasting change at the societal level.

     

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