How your donation reaches monastics
Many practitioners around the world have rejoiced at the ongoing Meditator Gratitude Campaign. Our local team has put the donation fund we’ve received to very good use, and local Sayadaws have reported great joy at the unexpected contribution during this, the most trying of times that they are now facing. In the following passage, one of the team leaders describes in detail how he ensures that the funds get directly to where they are most needed, and exactly what those funds go towards providing. During the week around the Silent Strike, they temporarily paused their donation activity due to safety concerns and heightened military presence, as soldiers are now threatening even those who bring to food to monks— an abominable development in a country where monastics have long been so revered. Our team has picked up their activity recently, and more detailed reports are coming soon. Please consider sharing this information to those in your community who might consider a donation to this worthy cause.
Our “[Redacted] Association” is organizing the relief aid program for the monasteries/nunneries/charity orphanages which are in bad need and almost in shortage of food. We have done the preliminary survey and collected the list of the sites which are in need of food. We have local volunteers in different parts of the country, mainly in Monywa, Sagaing and Mandalay. Our local volunteers met and talked to the residing monks of the monasteries/nunneries/charity orphanages and found out the urgent needs of the food. They provided our project team with the data of the population of the children living there, and etc. They have witnessed the real needs of the food for the children whom the Abbots are looking after, and the situation wherein they are supposed to go back to their native villages.
Our local volunteers will provide our project coordination team with the data such as the contacts and information of the abbots who are looking after these many children, both as lay-students and novices or nuns. Our project team will transfer the funds directly to the abbots/abbeys/responsible heads of some monasteries/nunneries/orphanages in some areas which our local volunteers cannot reach in person. [In these areas, we will request the responsible abbots/abbeys/heads of the sites to purchase the raw rice sacks and for some evidence follow-up works.] For most of the monasteries/nunneries/orphanages, our project team and local volunteers will arrange to purchase the raw rice sacks and donate to the sites in person. We will contribute the raw rice sacks depending upon the number of the children. For example, we will contribute 6 sacks of raw rice to an orphanage which has 30 children (including novices/nuns/lay-children).
We are mainly contributing raw rice only. However, we might consider to contribute some long-lasting food such as beans/chick-peas and dried fish or sausages, as well as vegetable oil, in some remote areas where the responsible abbots/abbeys/heads or teachers/wardens cannot go to the market weekly or frequently due to the armed conflicts taking place in some areas around them or cities, and due to the travel restrictions/issues.