Looking back over 2020 in Myanmar, Cufa has tackled the challenges of COVID-19, whilst laying the groundwork for our new DigiCUD program and continuing our transformational Child Financial Literacy and Credit Union Development Programs. As the time of writing, Myanmar’s COVID-19 outbreak has reached over 100,000 confirmed cases, resulting in a lockdown in the country’s largest city of Yangon where the Cufa office is based. Cufa’s staff and partnering rural communities have worked together to ensure our programs could continue, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
As schools closed to prevent the spread of the virus, Cufa’s staff feared that many students would miss out on participating in the CFL Program. Determined to conduct the CFL Program, our staff did not give up and provided 2,939 students with the program’s five lessons, usually conducted during school time, by conducting home visits. These visits involve our project officers visiting the homes of villages, delivering the lessons and advising the parents as well in ways they can help the child out as well.
Cufa, engaged by the United Nations Development Program, has created female-owned enterprises with a focus on agricultural and fishery sector-based business in Shan State and Mandalay Region. Through the Project, Cufa provided capacity building training to aspiring and established MSME entrepreneurs in areas including marketing skills, business plan, leadership, and financial management skills. In response to COVID-19 and at the request of UNDP, Cufa rapidly created and integrated training modules on digitising operations and digital marketing skills for participants. To ensure all entrepreneurs were able to receive their training amid the pandemic and the adaptation to virtual training, Cufa provided training aids and subsidies.
2021 marks Cufa’s 50th year of working to alleviate poverty in the Asia-Pacific Region. Cufa is looking forward to developing new and innovative programs to ensure that we can continue to empower marginalised people and communities with the tools to lift themselves out of intergenerational poverty.
Ohn San, UNDP Project participant.
