Developing social work in Myanmar: need for cultural interpretation

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Jonathan Parker talk in this article about training people in Myanmar (the country we often know as Burma), who are just grappling with social work as a new part of society. As they say:

Participants didn’t realise that something as seemingly humble as working with the lowly and underprivileged could be counted as a profession. The idea of international standards and principles underpinning this work was also a revelation.

This is a point that Gurid Aga Askeland, in particular, has often made in her commentaries on teaching social work across the world in countries where it is completely new. She argues that we should be trying to present our material in ways that can be interpreted into the cultural life of the country, rather than being experts from afar just retailing what Western countries do. This is certainly what Sara and Jonathan did, as you can see from their account.

Link to Guardian International Hub article.

Link to Gurid Aga Askeland article (that I made a contribution to). It downloads a pdf. You could also look at our book, published by Ashgate (and in a Chinese translation):  Link to Payne and Askeland.