Mentorship for SRHR Changemakers in Myanmar

Myanmar’s military coup in February 2021 caused a severe humanitarian crisis that led to over 1.5 million internally displaced persons (UN,2022). Migration, political unrest and violence, disproportionately impacts adolescent girls and women as it exposes them to risks of gender-based violence, early marriage and unintended pregnancies. A survey of 2,200 women in Myanmar conducted by UN Women in December 2021 found that half of them were afraid to leave their immediate neighbourhood. The pandemic, coupled with the fear of rising violence has kept many girls and women from accessing basic healthcare services to address these challenges. 

To ensure physical and mental well-being for girls and young women in Myanmar, their Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) needs must be prioritised. As Myanmar is a diverse country with over 100 ethnic groups, SRH needs vary. For instance, women living in ethnic minority regions have a higher rate of maternal mortality, are least likely to use modern contraception, and require additional support (Hedström & Tobias Herder 2023). As the situation in Myanmar remains volatile, it is critical that the diverse SRH service needs across the country are met by local leaders with deep community ties and lived experiences of problems they’re solving. 

Even as the military rule causes tremendous suffering, it strengthened the resolve of young people, with many women leaders at the centre, who are playing a key role to help their country progress- including in the field of SRH. In this protracted crisis, the people dedicated to bringing about change face a seemingly impossible choice: advocate for the rights and needs of others or take care of themselves. Young women changemakers face the double burden of gender discrimination, lack of support communities, and burnout from their work - which adversely affect their mental health. A global study of over 1,600 young changemakers found that 49% of respondents from marginalised backgrounds face a high-risk of burnout, and 47% identified the lack of important / powerful contacts as a key hurdle to succeeding in their initiatives (The Possibilsts 2023). These challenges are even more severe for young women in Myanmar whose personal security is at risk because of the military’s oppressive measures to crack down on citizen movements, including press and internet censorship, and restrictions on movement and communication. 

Supporting these young women changemakers is crucial to ensure hard won gains aren't lost, despite the odds. Yet the sustained underinvestment in leadership of young people jeopardises the efficacy of their movements. Wedu’s experience over the past decade has taught us that access to individualised mentoring and peer support sustains women in adverse situations, enabling them to persevere in the leadership journeys and creating change in their communities. Drawing on the cultural relevance of relational resilience and the proven effectiveness of mentoring, our mentorship programme for SRHR changemakers will enhance women’s leadership capabilities and build their resilience in order to foster greater sustainability and effectiveness of their SRHR work across the country. 

Wedu will leverage our decade of experience running women’s leadership and mentorship programmes for women in Myanmar and mobilise our diverse leadership community, which includes SRH activists, practitioners and experts, to curate an eight-month programme for 20 emerging women SRH leaders (ages 18-35) in Myanmar. 

The objective is to encourage and equip these young women leaders with the goal of sustaining their impact on SRH issues in Myanmar. We will centre their wellbeing and their goals for growth and impact by building leadership skills and relational resilience through one-to-one mentoring, learning sessions, and facilitated peer-support. 

1. Learning sessions: To strengthen the young women leaders’ capabilities to lead SRH initiatives, Wedu will host monthly virtual learning sessions, bringing in guest speakers to cover topics that will be co-determined with participants through a needs assessment. These sessions will be accompanied by facilitated peer-learning spaces where the young women leaders will learn from each other’s contexts and practices, identify ways to incorporate practical learnings into their work, and build solidarity. By elevating the participant's voices and recognizing their contributions in the field of SRHR through these sessions, we hope to build a community of SRHR advocates across Myanmar that will collaborate in their advocacy efforts and create sustainable change in their regions.

2. One-to-one mentorship: Wedu will connect mentees with mentors who work in the SRHR ecosystem using our matching algorithm to find the optimal fit. Over the course of an eight-months mentors will provide dedicated, one-on-one support to their mentees. In fortnightly calls, they will provide timely and personalised support to mentee to achieve goals they set for themselves, and use Wedu’s bespoke leadership curriculum to build relevant leadership skills. Through customised mentoring, mentees will be equipped with tools and resources they need to be impactful SRHR changemakers.

Our digitally enabled programme ensures safety for mentees as they do not need to travel outside their homes and can use services such as telegram calls. It also allows for flexibility as the one-on-one calls can be scheduled around their availability and prior commitments.

In the long-term, this programme aims to improve the resilience and leadership capabilities of the 20 young women leaders across Myanmar, which will be sustained by the collective care of the support network that Wedu fosters. At the community level, beyond building solidarity and relational resilience, the strong national connections that this programme facilitates can create shared solutions and collective action, leading to more coordinated SRHR agendas and campaigns. At the systems level, the programme will lead to an increased number of young women leading effectively, who continue to advocate for SRHR, leading to stronger outcomes for both gender equity and human rights across Myanmar.

Our mentorship programme overview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4dMCLHi5LQ 

Women and girls in Myanmar have been experiencing elevated levels of gender-based discrimination in the form of political, social and economic inequalities since the military coup in 2021. The military takeover increased their vulnerabilities to conflict related sexual violence as instruments of war, forced early marriage and loss of education and employment, with over 580,000 women losing employment since February 2021 (ILO, 2022). 

Since the coup, the military has reduced state spending on health and welfare services and provided minimal support for survivors of violence (International IDEA, March 2022). Compromised healthcare services and limited access to medical supplies have caused severe challenges for women, pushing thousands into period poverty (The Diplomatist, 2023).

This dire situation has given rise to activism and movements led by young women who have been at the forefront of non-violent protests to demonstrate their opposition to military rule. The citizens’ movement in Myanmar is facing an unequal fight from the military forces since the beginning and is in need of support from the international community. 

In addition to the resistance against the military, local leaders are working tirelessly to address deteriorating health, education and unemployment conditions in the country. Wedu has supported the leadership journeys of hundreds of young women in Myanmar since 2012, providing mentoring, leadership training, and education financing. For the past six years, we’ve added a focus on women in humanitarian contexts by extending our flagship mentoring program to young women living in refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. Our in-depth experience in the region helped us identify the urgent and dire need for Sexual and Reproductive Health services for girls and young women across Myanmar, and the growing risk of burnout among the women leading SRHR progress. 

Through the 4HerPower MIT Solve challenge, Wedu hopes to expand the impact of our mentorship programme to reach young women leaders working on SRHR solutions in their communities across Myanmar. We will rely on our strong networks with L/INGOs and over 1,000 Wedu community members in Myanmar to identify and support the leadership of 20 young women changemakers, ages 18-35. 

Wedu’s intersectional approach to selection and programme delivery is responsive to the groups we serve, and we work to ensure our cohort is diverse to include refugee women, LBTQ women, differently-abled women and those representing other identities. The adaptable and agile nature of our programmes allows us to meet the varied needs of our community. For example, our mentorship programme is bilingual and can be conducted in Burmese for the women who are not fluent in English. We will recruit 20 mentors from the SRHR ecosystem in the region who have contextual knowledge of the challenges faced by their mentees.

By leveraging Wedu's personalised, one-on-one virtual mentoring and tailored leadership curriculum, these women will receive individualised guidance that is designed to build their ability to address the unique SRHR needs of their communities.

Since 2012, Wedu has nurtured the leadership development of 5000 women changemakers across 28 countries in Asia. We do this by supporting their unique, lifelong journeys with mentorship, leadership development training, and funding for education. Our rich community in Myanmar consists of 1,000 emerging women leaders and gender equity allies. Wedu’s regional focus, deep experience in nurturing women’s education and leadership, and diverse community, are strengths we will draw on to build capacities of SRHR Changemakers in Myanmar.

Over the past decade, Wedu has matched over 2,133 mentorship pairs, including mentees who work in the field of SRHR in Southeast Asia. For example, our current community of 154 mentors from Myanmar includes an experienced humanitarian professional who’s expertise focuses on women’s and girls health and well-being, and a member of the Myanmar Medical Association who is active in their Gender Based Violence Area of Responsibility Community of Practice. Such community members will add richness and expertise to our learning modules. 

Our presence in Myanmar complements our decade long regional expertise of women leadership and mentoring. Our program lead is from Myanmar and has had lived experience in refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border which informs her work. Through this program, we position young women as leaders and provide them with opportunities to exercise leadership, building confidence, and counter mainstream narratives about them. The peer mentoring component of this mentorship programme centers on shared experiences, strengthening the sense of community and fostering collective resilience. Our work also goes beyond providing basic humanitarian services to expand participants’ locus of control by equipping them to create change in their current contexts and preparing them to navigate extreme uncertainty in the future, deepening their resilience.

In addition, Wedu’s entire team are women under the age of 35, who work out of four countries in Asia, providing a regional perspective. Additionally, Wedu’s leadership reflects our vision of a world where half of all leaders are women: our female Executive Director works closely with our boards in Thailand, Cambodia, and the UK, which all have female board chairs, with 85% of members identifying as women overall.

Through our leadership development and mentorship programmes, Wedu has impacted over a 1000 community members in Myanmar. Overall, since 2012, Wedu has nurtured the leadership development of 5000 women changemakers across 28 countries in Asia.