In 2015, we - Sabine Bräuer and Thomas Kosinski - travelled to Myanmar for the first time and were fascinated by this country and its people: by the helpfulness, friendliness and the self-evidence with which people take on their often difficult fate. Here the desire arose not only to spend a holiday in Myanmar, but to help where it is necessary and meaningful. To realize this plan we interrupted our lives in Germany for a longer period of time in order to start our own project, which directly benefits the affected people without great bureaucratic and technical effort.

The first phase of the project "Children's Glasses Myanmar: Good Seeing - Better Learning" connected the expertise of three partners: Dr. Peter Kaupke and the H.I.T. Foundation provided specialist medical expertise, the "Fördeverein Myanmar - Help Myanmar" provided organisational support and contacts in Myanmar. Sabine Bräuer and Thomas Kosinski have brought together the competence of the partners in the project "Children's Glasses Myanmar". For the first project phase "Children's Glasses Myanmar: Good Seeing - Better Learning" from November 2017 to February 2018, both have interrupted their professional work for several months.

The next project phase was scheduled from December 2019 to February 2020. Based on the experiences of the first project phase, the eye project was further developed and complemented by sustainability and help for self-help. This will be achieved by:

- Involvement of teachers in the course of the investigations (Train the Teacher).

- Simplification of the investigations and abandonment of the use of expensive technical equipment.

- Support for local crafts and local services for spectacle fitting and medical examinations.

- Local cooperation with opticians ans MEENT-hospital Mandalay.

The number of students at the Phaung Daw Oo Monastic High School (PDO) in Mandalay raised up to 7,500. Abbot U Nayaka is head of the PDO, which provides children with free education from "kindergarden" to university founded in 2018. PDO is the client of the project, which will be carried out at this and other monastic schools in Mandalay and the surrounding area.

Karl Bruch and the "Förderverein Myanmar e. V.  - Help Myanmar" are especially supportive in answering the many organisational questions before and during the project, and especially in establishing contact with the monastic schools. It is only thanks to the support of the association that we can concentrate on our actual work, namely the examination of the children's eyes. Through the Phaung Daw Oo Monastic High School, a project worker was placed in the project. Moh Moh Hliang studied English and has been supervising the project since the beginning of 2017.

The SES - Senior Expert Service in Bonn places specialists and executives abroad for the help to self-help for sustainable development. The SES has been supporting the children's glasses project since 2019 and forms another important link between the PDO as client from Myanmar and the requested experts Sabine Bräuer and Thomas Kosinski. The work as an expert of the SES is honorary and is not paid.