Well-being Program
The SWAN Well-Being Program is a strategic initiative dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and future of women, children, and youth impacted by conflict, displacement, and systemic inequality. Formally established in 2013, the program represents the integration of SWAN’s long-standing humanitarian pillars: the Health Program (1999) and the Women’s Crisis Support Program (2001).
These initiatives were originally founded to address the humanitarian crisis involving the forced displacement of Shan communities beginning in 1996. Today, the program delivers comprehensive community-based health services, education support, and emergency assistance to ensure that marginalized populations in the Thai-Burma border region can live with dignity and resilience.
Goal
To enhance the overall well-being of women and children by promoting health, education, and access to crisis and emergency support, enabling them to live with dignity, resilience, and equal opportunities.
Objectives
- Health: To improve the overall health and well-being of local communities (youth, women, and children) through health education, preventive and reproductive health awareness, capacity building of community health workers, and emergency support aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality.
- Education: To uphold the rights and well-being of marginalized children and youth from most vulnerable groups (including refugees, displaced communities, survivors) through access to education (such as scholarships and vocational skills development opportunities)
- Crisis and Emergency: To provide rapid, secure, and comprehensive crisis, protection, and psychosocial support to women, children, and vulnerable populations, including IDPs and survivors of violence, ensuring their safety, basic needs, rights, and mental well-being are upheld.
What We Do
- Well-being
Health Capacity Building
- Annual maternal and child health training for the health workers and special workshops covering topics requested by them.
- Implant training courses have been conducted and the trainees have provided almost 6,000 implant services to women living in rural/remote communities throughout Shan, Kachin, Karenni, Karen, and Mon States as well as the Tharyithanin Division. Implants and medical supplies are provided to the health workers to use in their local areas.
- Training for local Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) by the SWAN health workers.
Reproductive Health Education & Services
- Conducting village level basic and reproductive health educational sessions for married and unmarried women and men in the community aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies as well as sexually transmitted infections.
- For the pregnant women’s groups, the topics mainly focus on how to have a healthy pregnancy and the do’s and don’ts for safe delivery. If it is a mixed group of men and women the topics focus on family planning, and how to take care of women’s and children’s health and nutrition. The sessions also include how to prevent seasonal diseases and provide an opportunity for villagers to have their general health questions answered.
Antenatal, Delivery and Postnatal Care
- Home visits to provide antenatal care, delivery support and postnatal care services.
- Working with the government health department for vaccination and Zinc and deworming tablets for pregnant women.
School Health
- Conducting village level basic and reproductive health educational sessions for married and unmarried women and men in the community aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies as well as sexually transmitted infections.
- For the pregnant women’s groups, the topics mainly focus on how to have a healthy pregnancy and the do’s and don’ts for safe delivery. If it is a mixed group of men and women the topics focus on family planning, and how to take care of women’s and children’s health and nutrition. The sessions also include how to prevent seasonal diseases and provide an opportunity for villagers to have their general health questions answered.
Annual Household Survey
Conducting annual family planning and vital events surveys collecting data to assess local contraceptive prevalence rates, maternal mortality rates, crude birth and death rates, infant mortality rates and early childhood mortality rates.
Nutrition Survey
- Providing weighing sessions for children under 5 years of age in each village to check growth and development.
- Collecting data through weighing sessions for children under 5 years of age to identify the their nutritional state.
- Providing education on nutrition and the provision of supplements to those most malnourished.
- Education
Schools
The Education Program supports 4 schools along the Thai-Burma border by providing salaries for the teachers, distributing learning resources, and offering healthy lunches for students as well as by providing funds for transportation to take students to and from school. This support is for three nursery schools and one primary schools in Piang Luang and Fang districts. The 3 nursery schools are community run, one primary school is a branch of a Thai school, and one is a Thai primary school with many migrant children. The children thus benefit from a Thai curriculum and accreditation.
Scholarships
SWAN provides the scholarship for travel, lodging, food, fees of primary secondary and tertiary students who lack financial support. In 2020, 157 students have received scholarship, including 42 students whose parents are affected by HIV/AIDS, 15 orphans, and 20 students at Koung Jor boarding house.
Boarding House
SWAN supports a boarding house for children who require additional care, including those who have been orphaned or for children whose parents cannot afford to take care of them. Currently, SWAN is providing cook and food for 1 boarding house supporting 19 students (orphans, or HIV positive, or no financial support).
Professional Development
SWAN provides professional development for teachers. Special courses are regularly scheduled for approximately 20-30 teachers from the SWAN program. For most of the teachers this is their only opportunity to obtain refresher or continuing education. This is very important as many only graduated from high school and became volunteer teachers in their community, while others graduated from university in a range of subjects but have not received teacher training. Recently, the program has provided teacher training on child development, and distributed teaching materials (dictionary, notebooks, pens) to the teachers, and vocational education for 20 children with disabilities at a Thai secondary school.
Student Exchanges
During the period 2011 – 2019 the SWAN Education Program distributed 45,800 Shan text books in IDP areas along the Thai-Burma border and inside Burma in an effort to preserve the Shan language, culture, and history.
Shan Text Books
SWAN has organized a series of regular student exchanges, which allows adolescents from SWAN sponsored schools an opportunity to share their experiences regarding issues they face in their personal lives. The exchanges also provide a chance to celebrate their personal accomplishments. These exchanges have helped create a Shan adolescent network that works together to help their respective Shan communities.