Inside a tidy compound in a dusty Dry Zone village, U Maung Tun sits at the controls of a very old Singer sewing machine. Behind him is a pile of material, and the poster on the wall shows a coy girl in a bright dress. His eyes narrow in concentration as he threads the machine, and he stand up to reach the material behind him. Only now is it clear that the village tailor is disabled.
When U Maung Tun was a year old his right leg began to wither. He can walk but with difficulty, and in the summer months when the rains come, his leg aches. Until three years ago, when a project for the disabled funded by the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) arrived in the village, he earned an arduous living of around 1000 kyats (around a dollar) a day by foraging in the nearby forest for edible leaves to sell.
The Disabled Peoples Development Organisation (DPDO) implements the LIFT project. In this village they gathered those with disabled people in their households and assisted them. In the first place this meant tailor-made livelihoods activities, such as home gardens and animal husbandry (chickens or pigs), and training in book keeping, craft making and agricultural practice. Later it involved organizing household to support them to start their own savings self-help group.
The start up capital for the group was provided by the project, and members pay back loans ranging from 30 – 100,000 kyats (around US$ 30-100) at the end of three or eight month terms. Interest payments of 500 kyat (or 50 cents) are made every two weeks. The monthly rate is 2 per cent, compared to the village moneylenders who demand upwards of 8 per cent.
With a loan from the savings group, U Maung Tun was able to fulfill his dream of becoming a tailor, following in his parent’s footsteps. He purchased a used - antique but well functioning - sewing machine for 80,000 kyat (around $80) and through hard work and a good demand from the surrounding villages, was able to pay for it in a mere 8 months. He charges 800 kyat (about 80 cents) for a women’s blouse and 1200 (around $1.20) for a tailored men’s shirt. At a savings group meeting he proudly points to other members who are wearing his creations.
His income has now doubled, increasing his ability to make social contributions to the village poor (he makes payments towards funerals for families who can’t afford them), but he remains single, joking that he can’t yet afford a wife.
The LIFT-funded DPDO project works in 23 villages in the Dry Zone. At this stage in Myanmar’s reform, social protection for the disabled does not exist and, along with the elderly, the disabled represent some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the country. DPDO’s project provides them with the opportunity to meet and support one another, earn, gain confidence and become active in the community.
In its third year, the project’s good results led to LIFT extending it for a further year to consolidate on the gains. The savings groups in U Maung Tun’s village have taken their own initiative towards self sufficiency. For example, they have coordinated several groups at township level to pool interest profits to build and run a chicken farm that all members will have shares in. This follows the success of DPDO in another township, where savings groups work together to raise goats, using their pooled savings.
Life is much better for tailor U Maung Tun now, he says – but it is not only the project that has improved his life. He and other savings group members add that the continuing changes from government reform in Myanmar are making life easier in general.
To the end of 2013, LIFT support to the disabled had reached more than 6,500 households through DPDO and other partners HelpAge, ActionAid and SPPRG.
