IN what is believed to be a first in Myanmar, a group of teenagers has used an online chat site to arrange kahtein donations of cash, monks’ robes and other necessities to monasteries in Yangon.

Most of the donation was presented to the Rattana Thikha monastery at the corner of Baho and Bargayar roads in Sanchaung township on the full moon day of Tazaungmon.

Kahtein donations are presented to monasteries during the month leading up to the full-moon day, which this year fell on November 15.

Most of the 100 users of the chat site who gathered at the monastery to offer the donation had never met before.

“After we had the idea we used the chat room to notify its 300 members and started collecting money for the donation about 10 days before the full-moon day,” said Ko Than Nyi Htwe, one of five users of the site who organised the donation.

“We received pledges for more than K800,000 from chat room users who we know only by their nicknames, such as ‘energy,’ and ‘skyangle,’” he said, adding that the collection of the donations was arranged by the organising group.

Ko Than Nyi Htwe said the group chose to present about K500,000 to the Rattana Thikha monastery for maintenance work. The rest was distributed among needy monasteries in North Dagon township.

A senior monk at the Rattana Thikha monastery, the Venerable Sayadaw Wunnita, said the donation was the first of its kind to the monastery and praised the group for its support.

The donations were not the first to be arranged by the chat room users.
Last June they raised about K1 million, of which about K500,000 was donated to an orphanage. The balance was donated to the Shwedagon Pagoda, the Hninzigone Home for the Aged and a project to establish a Myanmar monastery in France.