Biking for Yangon Street Children

The following is from Sonne International and describes the meritorious work being done buy Austrian meditator Jochen Meissner. All are encouraged to support!

"Jochen Meissner came to Myanmar in 2012, fell in love with the country and decided to build a life here. Jochen founded Uncharted Horizons in 2015, a cycling and trekking company based in downtown Yangon. Once that was established he did not rest on his laurels. Jochen not only keeps on exploring and creating new and unique experiences, but also goes out of his way to exert a positive influence on the communities he is involved in; whether it be by donating clothing, helping children with cleft palates or providing hot meals for those in nursing homes. He really is the perfect example of someone who cares for his fellow human beings.

This brings us to his next adventure, which is getting 40 poor street kids off the streets of Yangon! On the 26th of August 2019, Jochen, in collaboration with the Austrian NGO SONNE-International, will cycle from Yangon to Singapore over a month in order to raise money for Yangon’s Street Children. Jochen will have the company of one of his wonderful guides, Michael, for the whole 3000 km.

Jochen is a long-time supporter of SONNE-International, and together they hope to raise 15.000 Euro so that forty street Children can be provided for in the new “SONNE Street Kids Centre” for a year, where they will receive health care, two meals a day, school uniforms, learning materials and tuition classes, with the objective of integrating these kids into a regular school after a year and thereby giving them a sense of normality and the chance of a better future."

Cholera and Dhamma

Cholera has long been one of the world’s most feared diseases. Especially in close unsanitary conditions, it spreads very rapidly, and can kill a healthy person in as little as three hours if left untreated (though more commonly it takes one or two days). Even today, around the globe, about 100,000 people die annually by this disease, according to the World Health Organization; before the advent of modern medicine, it was even more of a scourge.

Emanating from the Ganges Delta, cholera was endemic in Burma from at least the early 19th century. From the late 1800s to early 1900s, about 6,000 Burmese died from cholera annually, in particular along the country’s various watercourses. (From "Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma" by J. Richell) In those days, there was little in the way of infrastructure separating drinking water from sewage, especially in the countryside, and consequently cholera took its heaviest toll during the monsoon months when rain and flooding worsened the already unsanitary conditions.

Jumping forward to today, and to an enterprising foreign yogi, Jochen Meissner, (Meissner is the owner of Uncharted Horizens Myanmar, an organization that arranges bike trips in the area (www.uncharted-horizons-myanmar.com) who carries out various volunteer projects in the more impoverished parts of Dalla. One of these as been the donation of three Life Straw purification systems that filter twenty-four liters of water per hour. His wholesome deed of providing clean drinking water evokes the area’s suffering of over a century ago. Of course, cholera was what led to the tragedy of Saya Thet Gyi losing his daughter and ultimately dedicating himself to the Dhamma…which eventually led to his student Sayagyi U Ba Khin learning the practice and setting up International Meditation Centre…which led eventually to Meissner himself becoming an IMC student in Austria…and now this student in the U Ba Khin tradition completes the circle by giving the gift of that clean water back to that community.