Forced Connections By: John Cabra Do you ever ponder the origins of those elusive "Aha!" ideas? I've been eager to explain this moment to our Burmese workshop participants for some time now, particularly as a prelude to introducing the tool Forced Connections—IMU is currently partnering with the National Unity Government’s Ministry of Education to develop [...]

Treating Others with Dignity By: John Cabra I previously taught at the Center for Applied Imagination at Buffalo State University. Some years ago, I came across a situation involving graduate students who were enthusiastic about the creative studies program. Interestingly, even after completing all the requirements for their degrees, they chose to remain rather than [...]

Fear Can Impact Our Judgment of Creativity Before the military coup, we worked with a group of young leaders from non-profit organizations in Yangon. Our collaboration focused on a workshop on Creative Problem Solving (CPS). In this workshop, participants learned how to approach real challenges using the CPS process. Let's break it down into simpler [...]

Alternative Problem Solving Method In one of my classes involving the support of education for Burmese teachers, I argued that when you're trying to solve a difficult problem, it's important to take the time to clearly understand what the problem is before jumping to solutions. Sometimes, we can make hasty judgments and miss out on [...]

IMU Attends First Conference of the Higher Education Sector amid the Spring Revolution The Institute for Myanmar United attended the First Conference of the Higher Education Sector amid the Spring Revolution from April 21-23, 2023. This conference works to overcome obstacles in an effort to create and implement an education system in the face of [...]

IMU 2022 Year in Review As 2022 comes to an end, the Institute for Myanmar United is excited for the year ahead and for everything we’ve accomplished in 2022. We want to share some of our highlights from this past year including the following: We launched our peer mentorship and tutoring program We created the [...]

IMU Mentorship Program Concludes Its Pilot Period With summer coming to an end, I am happy to announce that IMU has successfully piloted our Mentorship Program. Over the last few months, we have learned a lot about ourselves, our clients, and our process. These understandings have been invaluable in the continued growth and development of [...]

Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program Update: Week 12 The Institute for Myanmar United is excited to share an update from week twelve of the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program! This week, we are happy to welcome a new participant to our program! Miriam (9th Grade) has joined us for extra help with her homework. Additionally, [...]

Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program Update: Week 11 The Institute for Myanmar United is excited to share an update from week eleven of the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program! We are 2/3 of the way through our pilot of the program. This week we are happy to announce that we have 2 new participants— Zun [...]

Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program Update: Week 7 The Institute for Myanmar United is excited to share an update from week seven of the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program! This week we celebrate Jarring for having successfully passed the NYS Teaching Assistant Certification Exam. Jarring has been working as a part of our program for [...]

IMU is Now Offering Enhanced Donation Options on Our Website The Institute for Myanmar United is pleased to announce we are now offering enhanced donation options on our website! In addition to accepting donations via PayPal, we are now offering the ability to donate to IMU via credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, and Google [...]

Regional Creativity: Cultural and Socio-Economic Differences This article first appeared in the Journal of Creativity/Science Direct. By: John F. Cabra and Cesar D. Guerrero Creativity is context specific (Lubart, 2010). Different regions around the globe have different views of creativity, its conception and purpose. Regional creativity can be seen as the cultural and socio-economic implications that [...]

Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program Update: Week 4 The Institute for Myanmar United is excited to share an update from week four of the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program! Today, we had two new students join the program: Sarah— a second grader, and Ro— a high school Junior. Jeremy provided direct tutoring to Sarah, who [...]

Peer Mentorship and Tutoring Program Adds a Second Monday Session Over the last few weeks, our Burmese Peer Mentorship and Tutoring Program staff have worked to adjust its structure so as to make it as accessible as possible to the widest range of interested participants. Therefore, we are now offering two sessions every Monday with [...]

Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program Update: Week 1 The Institute for Myanmar United is proud to share an update from the first week of the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program! After months of hard work, Jeremy, Will, and Jacob welcomed the first cohort of participants yesterday. Following introductions, our staff engaged students with guided conversation [...]

How the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program Was Built The Institute for Myanmar United (IMU) worked collaboratively with the local Burmese population in the Syracuse, NY region, to create the Peer Mentorship & Tutoring Program. Together, we were able to identify that many Burmese high school students are not receiving the level of support they [...]

The Institute for Myanmar United Launches its First Program— Peer Mentorship & Tutoring The Institute for Myanmar United (IMU) is excited to launch its first pilot program, Peer Mentorship & Tutoring! IMU worked collaboratively with the local Burmese population in the Syracuse, NY region, to identify that many Burmese high school students are not receiving [...]

Sparking Creativity Through Provocation By: John Cabra According to Edward De Bono, a scholar in the scientific study of creativity, a provocation deliberately causes your mind to move out of true and tried mental tracks that often are formed from one's training and experiences. I work for a consulting firm, Knowinnovation, dedicated to advancing scientific [...]

Our Methodology As a means of carrying out our mission, IMU utilizes different approaches. At the Community Level, our methodology includes the Creative/Collaborative Programming Process. This methodology, which is being developed by our Programming Department, merges aspects of Creative Problem Solving with Civic Engagement. Put simply, our work within the community is done in collaboration [...]

Who We Are - Meet the Board MembersDr. John Cabra, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer Hi! My name is John Cabra and I am the Co-founder of the Institute for Myanmar United (IMU). Previously, I was IMU’s President and now I am its Vice President. I often get asked why Myanmar. Well, my former student, Myo [...]

Who We Are - Meet the President Jeremy Brewster is the President of Institute for Myanmar United. His involvement with Burma and its people began in 2018 when Jeremy first traveled to the country as a member of the Myanmar Service Learning and Civic Engagement Course through Buffalo State University. Over the next few years, [...]

Introducing Institute for Myanmar United (IMU) The Institute for Myanmar United is a nonprofit organization founded on the belief that creativity is a power that can be wielded to manifest positive change. Our mission is to release this power to help the individuals, communities, and nation of Burma reclaim their/its freedom, unity, and hope. The [...]