Report · Back to school 2026

The school year starts in June

In Myanmar the school year does not begin in September. In early June our boarding-house residents went back to school — and nine children from the Drop-In Center set off for the very first time.

1 At the boarding house, Yangon

All the boarding-house residents together in uniform on the terrace, their bags lined up in front of them — **The first morning** White shirt, green longyi: the uniform is the same across the country, from primary school to the end of secondary. In front of them, the bags in a row — like the uniforms and the supplies, they are part of what the boarding house covers.

The boarding house does not empty out during the three months of holidays. Our residents come from isolated villages in Chin State, and the civil war means they cannot go home. The boarding house is where they live all year round.

So the start of term is not a homecoming. It is the moment ordinary life picks up again — school, teachers, classmates. They had been waiting for it.

Four of the youngest girls at the boarding house, in uniform, bags on their shoulders — **The youngest** Thanaka on their cheeks, bags already on their shoulders.

Three boys in uniform on the terrace of the boarding house, giving a thumbs up — **Ready** Barefoot on the terrace, just for the photograph.

Five secondary-school students from the boarding house, in uniform, at the start of the school year — **The older girls** They arrived as small children and are now sitting their end-of-secondary exams. One of our residents passed hers last March — the first to do so.

Children sitting in a trailer hitched to a motorbike, under a parasol, on a rain-soaked road — **The journey** June is also the monsoon. They set off anyway: a motorbike, a trailer, one parasol for everybody.

2 At the Drop-In Center, the first time

A few kilometres away, the Drop-In Center has spent more than a year welcoming children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Yangon who had dropped out of school. They come to learn, to find a rhythm again, to rebuild their confidence. From the start, the aim was to get them back into school wherever that was possible.

Over the holidays the team helped families through the paperwork needed to enrol a child. In early June, nine of them started school. They joined a special class that lets them make up the lost years step by step.

Nine children from the Drop-In Center in a line on a dirt track, holding up their exercise books and pencils — **“For some it was the very first school day of their lives”** For the others, a return after several years away. Exercise books and pencils held high, on the way to school.

The Drop-In Center children with their new school bags, lined up under a tree — **The bags** The same ones as at the boarding house. Registration, school fees, uniforms, shoes, supplies: all covered, so that no family has to choose between school and everything else.

The nine Drop-In Center children arm in arm, in uniform, school badges round their necks — **The badge round the neck** Every morning before class they come by the centre: homework, revision, English and computing.

Getting back into school is one thing. Staying there is another. That is where it is won.

What a school year actually costs

School fees, uniforms, supplies, three meals a day, medical care and a bed all year round, holidays included. That is what a sponsorship covers.

Sponsor a resident Support the boarding house

Photographs and accounts published by the Nimalay team in Yangon, June and September 2026. All the news