Dr. SaSa
Dr SaSa studied medicine with the goal of establishing a community-wide primary health care system amongst the Chin people, in Burma.
He established a primary health care training centre and has trained over 300 community health care workers from 150 villages. This is the first time these villages are able to access any form of health care provision at community level.
Dr SaSa grew up in the Chin state in Myanmar, which is a restricted area of the country where no one can travel freely. He was identified at an early age as having unique qualities and skills that the village folk hoped would help them in the future.
Since there were no secondary schools in Chin state at the age of 13, he was forced to leave his village and go to Yangon (capital) to study. It was a very difficult time being alone and from a minority group, but he lived there for 2 years on his own with no family contact.
He finished his high school education but in 1997, the Myanmar regime closed all colleges and universities across country – this lasted three years. This forced Dr SaSa to return to his home village where he became a volunteer teacher at the local school. During this time he witnessed the firsthand suffering of the sick, elderly and mothers-to-be who had no access to any form of medical support.
There was no government health care system in Chin state, and many people died from easily treatable diseases or illnesses. This made Dr SaSa resolute to study medicine and come back to ensure his people would cease to suffer.
In 1999, all the local villages contributed to sending Dr SaSa to India to study science. Later on, he then qualified to study medicine in Armenia and qualified as a doctor in 2009. Since then, Dr Sasa returned to the border region of Myanmar where he has set up a community-based health care programme that trains hundreds of community health care workers every year and also provides them with basic medication.
Myanmar is a dictatorship run by a military junta following a coup. Reports of political oppression are continually reported while the legitimate leader, Aung San Suu Kyi still remains in prison following her victory in free and fair elections.
At the moment Myanmar has more than 2,000 political prisoners and more than 70,000 child soldiers, many of them fighting ethnic minority groups along the border regions - where forced labour, rapes, executions and torture are common place.
Ethnic minorities, especially Christian ones, are severally marginalised and receive little government support. As a result child mortality and other health related statistics are extremely high, three out of every five children aged under five die due to treatable and preventable diseases. Over half a million people are living with HIV, almost all have no access to care or treatment. Every year 70,000 people die from TB, malaria and treatable waterborne diseases.
Amongst the Chin ethnic minority group the situation is even worst. There is no government health care system, no secondary schooling, and the whole region is of restricted access, which does not allow for any foreign aid or support.
Dr SaSa studied medicine with the goal of establishing a community-wide primary health care system amongst the Chin people.
Over the past few years, Chin state has suffered from a famine due to the phenomenon known as Bamboo flowering. The region was also affected by drought and a rat plague which destroyed plantations.
During his studies, Dr SaSa often returned to the region to set up a relief programme for the suffering communities. Finally, on completion of his medical degree in 2009, Dr SaSa retuned to the border region where he established a training centre for community health care workers.
Currently, he is implementing the first community-based primary health care programme across all Chin state. He is training over 300 primary health care workers who come for a three months training every few months and then return to their villages to put into practice what they have learned.
