Young Expert Program’s Interview Series: May Thet Kyaw

" We (MDF) is focuing on the abilities of people. Working in MDF is the same as functioning in the YEP program "

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Are you familiar with the Young Expert Program (YEP) in Myanmar? In Myanmar, there are currently active international and local young players called YEPpers, who are dedicated to their work in the water and agriculture sector. I would like to introduce you to a YEPpers every month and explore what they are doing, what is their mission, and how they are working in Myanmar. You too can also become one of the YEPpers so please read further!!

First, I would like to explain briefly what is the Young Expert Program (YEP) program. Young Expert Program (YEP) is a program for young professionals from the Netherlands and local professionals taking their first steps in an international environment. Each YEPpers has his or her own assignment when joining the YEP program, together with a project implemented by a Dutch organization. Please check out the detailed information.

May Thet Kyaw

She has been working as a trainer and consultant in MDF Asia Myanmar that provides a wide range of training. The training includes leadership, people management, Monitoring & Evaluation for learning, Management & Evaluation for Learning, etc. Among these various large range of trainings, she has been serving capacity building training, process facilitation and research to local organizations and communities.

MDF and May Thet Kyaw

MDF Training & Consultancy has been working in Myanmar since 2013. May Thet Kyaw is a part of the team of 6 qualified international and national trainer/consultants that supports NGOs, Government sector and the private sector to improve their performance and create impact.

"We, MDF focus on the abilities of people. We mostly work in the agricultural sector but we also work in the water sector with an emphasis om training, mentoring and evaluation," she explained about her organization. "We helped to create a 2-year curriculum for State Agriculture Institutes (SAI) in Myanmar by holding several workshops and assessments with SAI division staff, SAI principals and teachers," she shared her contribution while working on a 4-year NICHE project 'Strengthening of Vocational Education and Training for Food Security'. "In the curriculum, rather than technical skills, we included soft skills curriculum like social skills, public speaking, leadership and conflict management to modernize its curriculum and teaching methods" she added.

The importance of Local Inclusiveness

The interesting part of her work is inviting the teachers and principals to join the workshops, training sessions and meetings while creating the curriculum. "This makes achieving better and more sustainable results not only for the future generation of learners but also for the staff and functioning of the organizations," she said explicitly. Therefore, on the part of the teachers, they received contemporary technology developments and new methods to train their students through correction from top to bottom level.

Impact due to her effort

"Since I have been mainly focusing on training capacity building in MDF, we, MDF empower individuals, organizations and international networks to increase their positive social impact," she shared her efforts in a modest way.

Sharing some of her knowledge of vocational training to the SAI staff is her special achievement. Reinventing syllabus to include social skills at a national level shaped a two-way learning process instead of the one-way learning process before.

"Working in MDF is the same as functioning in the YEP program," she quoted.

May Thet Kyaw Profile: https://www.yepprogrammes.com/users/258/37/maythetkyaw