Myanmar (Burma) is one of the poorest countries in the world with a shockingly low spend on healthcare. Children with disabilities (including Down syndrome, autism cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, deaf and various motor neurone diseases get virtually no government care. Although there are some private feepaying schools for the disabled we run one of the few free centres in the country. Children with physical and mental disabilities are usually excluded from schools and are a burden to the family. Requiring full-time care, they prevent parents from working and do not develop any life skills. Those with physical problems often have no medical care and their condition continues to deteriorate.

The Starfish Centre has been running now for 8 years. We have built up an excellent reputation amongst the families we help as well as in the professional community which is why we are now getting so many referrals from government education, medical and social work departments. Although there are 160 children registered they do not all attend every day often because they come from quite far away and the parents are only able to bring them a few days a week. Most days we have 60 children attending. Monday to Friday we run the school and at the weekends physiotherapists treat children with physical disabilities, mainly those with cerebral palsy. We also teach the parents how to care for their children which is particularly important as children with muscular problems need regular specialist exercise which can be taught to the parents.