Rohingya Partnership
Led by Rohingya-American Umar Faruq, Dry Creek has helped complete construction of 2 schools in the Arakan State of Myanmar.
In 2005, Umar Faruq finished high school in his Rohingya village in Myanmar and left in pursuit of higher education. Because the Rohingya are not recognized by Myanmar’s Buddhist government, he had to leave his home. He walked 70 days to the capital city, Yangon, and traveled on to Malaysia as a refugee, eventually seeking asylum in the United States in 2013.
Dry Creek connected with Umar via the Asian Association of Utah and has supported the construction of a high school in his home village and a middle school in a nearby village.
The Rohingya communities raised a large portion of the required funding by selling their land and completed about half of the construction before DCC helped finish a roof, schoolyard, fencing and latrines on both campuses.
Student Success
The Satkya school has 800 students K-10th grade. Since 2012, the community has provided 23 volunteer teachers. In 2020, 16/34 students passed the matriculation exam (47%) compared to 4/160 (3%) at the nearby government school. Because of the country’s harsh restrictions on the Rohingya, none of the 16 students will be able to continue on to college.
