Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Big Hearts - The Punks of Yangon


photographs at the end of the article

Every Monday night the punks of Yangon walk the streets of the city's downtown and help the homeless and the low income locals with food. I read about them (here and here) before joining the group this Monday evening. A while ago I watched on-line a short movie (here) about their social initiative. I wanted to support this project so I went to buy a T-shirt which reads Food not Bombs.


They also walk the area around Hledan, usually on Wednesdays, but with irregularity. 

In my article I wish to showcase this kind initiative which manages to bring together punks, locals, expats, and sometimes even tourists. They all meet on Monday evenings under the overpass on the Sule Pagoda Road (at the crossing with Anawrahta Road) where they have a shop selling shoes and t-shirts. Each participant donates some money with which the group buys food: bread, paratha Indian bread, fruits like bananas and oranges, sweet sticky rice, drinking water... Once the shopping is made everyone is in charge of distributing one type of food.

Along the streets, people are waiting as they know it is the day the group passes by to offer food. There are women with children, old or ill people, low-income locals like security guards or garbage collectors (and street sweepers) who are grateful for the dinner bag which they receive. The punks stop and chat with them, asking about family members and friends. Sometimes they hand over more food for the relatives as well. I asked them where all the homeless sleep and they told me many spend the night at the train station or inside some stairwells. I thought about the long and humid rainy season.

The tour ends after one hour and the group shares a drink together before heading home. If you have time, do join in and help this initiative grow. 

The group meets at 8pm every Monday evening. Please announce your presence to the group coordinator Kyaw Kyaw 09 773 770 773.


If you do not have the time please pass by and buy one of their Food not Bombs t-shirts from their shoe&t-shirts stalls at the underpass on the Sule Pagoda road (location described above). They open the stall at around 4pm and close it at 7.30pm.

Here are the photographs which I took this Monday evening:

The shop the Punks of Yangon have under the flyover

The Punks of Yangon buy food for the homless

The Punks of Yangon shop for food to offer to homeless

The Punks of Yangon offer food to homeless and low income people

The Punks of Yangon offer food to homeless and low income people

The Punks of Yangon offer food to homeless and low income people

The Punks of Yangon offer food to homeless and low income people

3 comments:

  1. Wow, good initiative. Wish we have such initiatives every where. Hatss off to all the people. Thank you for sharing it with us

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  2. That is really good, good thing is people are concern about fellow citizen else in todays world no one really cares about others

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  3. Very inspiring effort. I salute this group for helping the helpless or marginalized community. Definitely they are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

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