Where Am I Giving: A Global Adventure Exploring How to Use Your Gifts and Talents to Make a Difference

8Seeing Differently to Make a Difference (Myanmar, 2017): A not-so-noble Nobel Peace Prize winner / Problem with karma / Intent matters

AS NIGHT FELL, THE LIGHT EMANATING from a shipping-container-turned-classroom in the parking lot of the Yangon train station penetrated farther into the growing darkness. Rows of tiny heads faced the front of the converted shipping container sitting on the bed of a green truck. The heads followed the movements of their teachers.

The male teacher tapped a boy on the head with a role of paper he made ever tighter by fidgeting with it.

It seemed voyeuristic watching the class through the glowing windows – two-dimensional characters, distant others – while I stood invisible in the dark. A girl raised her hand, said something to the teacher, and walked out the back of the container classroom.

She glanced at me and then ran off to a tree on the edge of the property where she squatted to pee. When it poured rain, I used the tree as an umbrella; she used it as a toilet.

I wasn't alone in my voyeurism. A few kids played in the parking lot, stopping to watch the class of 16 kids. A boy stood on a post behind the classroom and posed like Peter Pan to get a better glimpse of what was going on. Not growing up is a luxury most of these kids will never know.

These kids have jobs. They work 10- or 12-hour days in teahouses spread throughout the city, and then at night they attend this mobile classroom run by the myME: Myanmar Mobile Education Project, founded ...