Episode #569: When Hla Hla Win was sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison at age twenty-three, she did not focus on the number. “I decided that in politics, the way things change, I will be released.” She narrowed her horizon to the day in front of her — reading, teaching other inmates’ children, and sleeping without the constant fear of arrest that had defined her underground reporting.

A former teacher turned DVB journalist after the 2007 Saffron Revolution, Hla Hla Win was arrested in 2009 for interviewing monks about military killings. During interrogation, she protected a secret Yangon office by answering almost everything truthfully — except the one question that mattered. “They asked ten questions. I answered nine questions true, and then one is false!”

After her release, Hla Hla Win refused to return to party politics. “If the government or the NLD party or other people do some mistake, I would report them,” she says. “Everyone!” She rejected campaigns that shielded power from criticism and insisted, “We have to report both sides, [where there are] human rights violation.”

Following the 2021 coup, Hla Hla Win resumed reporting despite being a new mother, and with internet blackouts in place, she uploaded frequent livestreams and reports. Eventually the military recognized her voice, and so she had to flee to Thailand. Now based along the border, she repeatedly returns to some of the worst-hit conflict zones, working as both journalist and fixer.

Hla Hla Win admits that airstrikes are the one thing she cannot control. “I can’t do nothing,” she says of the twenty seconds between hearing a jet and impact. She has filmed fighters meeting newborn children over video calls and listened to young resistance members shout from mountains, “I want to go home!”

The war has expanded, reshaping territory and institutions. The strain is visible — especially among young fighters — yet she does not believe morale has collapsed. “I believe people continue to fight to the end of the military.”

Episode #568: “I think a world where people partner and support each other is the world I want my kids to grow up in,” says Greg Tyrosvoutis, co-founder and director of the Inclusive Education Foundation (InED) on the Thailand–Myanmar border. For fifteen years he has worked with refugee camps, migrant learning centers, and ethnic-run schools serving communities displaced by conflict. His guiding belief is that education in crisis settings is not charity, but long-term partnership built on shared responsibility.

Greg arrived in 2010 after graduating from Teachers College in Ottawa. Simultaneously offered a stable teaching job in Canada and a volunteer role on the border, he chose Mae Sot, assuming it would be temporary. Teaching displaced students at a GED-equivalent higher education program, he encountered youth who viewed schooling as a lifeline. Over time, he watched former students return as teachers, reinforcing his belief that education creates generational continuity.

After funding shifts ended his position with an international organization, Greg and colleagues founded what became the Inclusive Education Foundation (InED) They expanded from teacher training to out-of-school enrollment, youth programs, and emergency relief during COVID-19, when migrant communities were locked down without income.

InED’s mission addresses what Greg describes as a steeply narrowing triangle of enrollment: many children enter early grades, but only one in five finish school. Today, InED supports roughly 1000s of teachers annually and 1,200 students through enrollment and classroom support. Access to technology is problematic, and funding instability remains acute. “They're doing something meaningful, but it's a band aid on cancer, essentially,” he says of short-term grants. Still, he perseveres, and continues to adapt, in the strong belief that creativity and innovation are born of necessity.

Episode #567: Stella Naw, a Kachin academic activist focused on indigenous and decolonial peacebuilding, is joined by Dustin Barter, a senior research fellow at the Humanitarian Policy Group at ODI, and together they argue that in the turmoil since the 2021 coup, ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) and their civil society partners are reshaping governance and legitimacy from the ground up, even as international recognition and aid decline.

Stella traces the problem to Myanmar’s founding. Before 1948, indigenous communities governed themselves. The creation of the Union imposed internal and external borders that divided communities and ignored longstanding political realities. After the military consolidated power in the 1960s, governance became increasingly centralized, and divide-and-conquer tactics deepened ethnic and religious fragmentation. In response to state neglect, EROs began to build parallel systems—schools, clinics, land administration, and local dispute resolution—in areas beyond effective central control.

During the 2010s political opening, international engagement centered on Naypyidaw and Yangon. The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), a centralized peace framework between the military and selected ethnic armed organizations, drew major donor funding and pressure on non-signatories. While it introduced some reforms, Stella and Dustin argue it ultimately reinforcedcentralization and sidelined federal visions emerging from border regions.

After the coup, urban protest evolved into nationwide armed resistance aligned with longstanding EROs. As junta control contracted, regional authorities expanded governance. In Kachin and Karenni, resistance-linked institutions collaborate with civil society and religious networks, emphasizing accountability. Stella challenges international definitions of legitimacy, arguing it should derive from sustained relationships between governing actors and communities.

Though some fear decentralization may marginalize minorities within minority regions, Dustin maintains that complexity requires inclusive negotiation, not disengagement. With humanitarian funding shrinking, he calls for cross-border aid and sustained diplomatic pressure. As he concludes, “The best pathway forward… is for the revolution to succeed.”