Community Leader
Ako
Ako at a young age dreamed of making Myanmar a better place. He adopted his first son at age 27 and moved to Thaton township to start his church. It wasn’t long before he recognized the need for an orphanage in Thaton and started one. It was the first of its kind in the area. To this day he has adopted over 30 children and grew his church to 8 house churches.
He is a leader in the community and continually works with nonprofits and the local officials to provide support to schools, prisoners, local computer college, hospitals, and others. Ako has had much of his outside support cut off since the Ferburary 1st military coup. That said he still finds ways to provide some basic support to those living in extreme poverty. When the military took over they shut down cell phone towers, closed schools and hospitals, continue to arrest, harass and even kills those who do not support them. The daily violence in Myanmar is beyond our worst imagination with terror, injustice, and extreme violence occurring daily to communities and families.
Ako has put our support directly to use, delivering food to families that are suffering from this military takeover. He did this even though those who provide give freely and share food to the poor are often chased down an arrested without reason. His brave work and care for the people in his community is of the utmost importance, especially at this time. We are thankful and encouraged to support his work.
Personal
Each quarter, The Goble Family Foundation honors a FreestarterTM with a financial donation of $2,500
— plus a whole lot of love. If you see a FreestarterTM here, it’s because we deeply believe in what they are doing. We hope you, too, will be inspired by their bravery, out of the box thinking, trail blazing, perhaps sometimes wacky, work and ideas. And, perhaps, even choose to join them.
To nominate a FreestarterTM in your life, please fill out the nomination form below. Please note the restrictions of the Goble Family Foundation’s mission to provide educational opportunities, ethical storytelling and human rights through our grants.