FFSS to provide support to cyclone orphans
Jun 2, 2008 (DVB)
In an effort to provide educational assistance, the Free Funeral Service Society plans to establish an orphanage for children whose parents were killed when Cyclone Nargis struck Burma in early May.
According to FFSS financial officer Daw Zee Kwat, said the orphanage would take in children who had no one else to look after them.
“We will take care of them in two ways. One way is to send the children to our relatives and others who are willing to raise them,” she said.
“The other way is to set up an orphanage of our own for them in North Okkalapa, Rangoon division,” said Daw Zee Kwat.
The FFSS has been providing relief supplies to cyclone victims in affected areas in Rangoon and Irrawaddy divisions since the cyclone.
So far the group has distributed rice, cooking oil, salt, medicine, clothes, dried fish, pounded fish, tinned fish, cooking pots, plastic sheets, water purifying tablets, plates, bowls, blankets and other supplies worth millions of kyat.
When asked why the FFSS was particularly interested in nurturing children, Daw Zee Kwat said she believed that Burma’s future lay in its children.
“If our children are bright, our country will have a better future – that’s why we are interested in looking after them,” she said.
“We want them to become well-behaved, less selfish and be willing to work for public interest.”
The FFSS will take care of the orphans until their graduation.
Since its inception, the FFSS has been funding its programmes solely with private donations from Burmese nationals living inside the country and abroad. It also has received donations from individual foreigners.

Reporting by Yee May Aung