# Who learned the most after Cyclone Nargis

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-singapore-students-myanmar-cyclone
- Themes: service, hope, compassion, youth
- Life situations: privileged youth, volunteering, despair about the world

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Groups in Singapore took privileged, highly educated teenagers to southern Myanmar to help villages destroyed by Cyclone Nargis. The students told Ajahn Brahm they learned more in those two or three weeks than in their whole school life: they couldn't understand the village children's language but bonded, felt one another and worked together. Who benefited most? The kids from Singapore.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

They took a whole bunch of kids, elite, I think you probably call elite, rich parents, very comfortable, highly educated uh to it was I think southern Myanmar after the the Naris um cyclone destroyed so many villages in southern Myanmar. And because I go to Singapore, I've got some groups over there. Some of the kids were telling me that they learned more in those two or three weeks than in their whole school life. Being able just to be with children who they couldn't really understand their language and the Singaporean English or Chinese which they were talking totally incomprehensible but they could still bond. They could feel one another. and connect with one another and work together and have something which who benefited the most from that interaction. Was it the kids who had no place to go to school, no place to go to sleep, their houses destroyed, infrastructure disappeared by cyclone Naris? Was Naris, wasn't it? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. by that devastation. Who learned the most? It was the kids from Singapore. They learned so much about the big world and how they could help.

## Teaching point

Helping others in trouble gives hope and connection, and teaches the helper most of all.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Privileged Singapore teenagers went to help cyclone-hit villages in Myanmar. They couldn't speak the children's language, yet they bonded and worked side by side, and said they learned more in three weeks than in all their schooling. Helping others gives the helper hope too. When someone suffers, don't walk past.

## Source

- [Building Resilience | Ajahn Brahm | 8 November 2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_znbRN8JRXw) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 34:01 to 35:47: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_znbRN8JRXw&t=2041s