How your donation supported street vendors
We have applied part of the donation fund to support street vendors. These workers were barely getting by as it was during the pandemic, and since the military coup many have had no income for many months. Following is a report from the team that carried the project out, including translations of the vendors’ response at receiving this financial support.
Sharing love to street vendors' campaign. Let us share the photos of joy for donors and for people to keep fighting against this awful dictatorship.
Every uncles, aunties and children we saw are very honest people. Children who sell flowers insisting us on giving us a present of the flowers they are selling after we made the donations, a bayarkyaw seller also said “please, at least eat my bayarkyaws”, while the tofu seller also said “at least, eat my fried tofu, niece.”
When we started this “street vendor campaign”, it was not borne out of sympathy. It was borne out of an appreciation for those people earning money by doing honest jobs during this coup and stemmed from the slogan “by the people, for the people.” When we give contributions to kids, we say “Because we love you and we love your honest jobs!”
A sesame won’t make a jar full of sesame oil. But many of them? You may need a garage! Following are individual comments from vendors after receiving the surprise donation:
Son who sells jasmine at traffic light – He used to run to us whenever we happened to pass that place. One day, we gave some of contributions to that kid and that kid ran away from us. We were surprised at first but what he did next was more surprising. He went and called an older kid and said “bro, it is them who helped your grandfather in recent days!” He then again said, “Can you take all these jasmine flowers, because I want to home early today?” So, we took it and gave them out freely to nearby cars.
Pagoda flower grandma – she was waiting to cross the road. We called her and said “We are proud to see you working honestly till this age and we would love to give contributions that were donated kindly from strangers around the world who never even met you. She was in tears and gave many wishes to you donors.
Used tin trading uncle – When we gazed into his cart, there is only two tins in his cart and the time was already 2:30 pm. It was a very hot day. When we told him about our campaign, his reply was “Har, aye aye” like in the photo!
Auntie who sell Myanmar traditional food – She is the inspiring source of this campaign!
Coconut water brother – He was in awe and in tears and it touched our hearts so much that we couldn’t smile anymore.
Flower seller uncle from traffic lights – His voice was shaking as he had taken the money. He gifted us some flowers.
Bayarkyaw brother – he thought I was a teacher and saying thank you with a pronoun “thank you teacher”. We had to tell him that I am not a teacher.
Tofu Uncle – He said today’s not a good day. Too many tofu left in his cart. He told us to eat his fried tofu at least!
