Why We Do What We Do
Humanitarian support should do more than respond to crisis.
We believe meaningful support must address immediate needs while helping people and communities move toward greater stability, dignity, and resilience.
Our work is guided by the understanding that people affected by conflict, displacement, disaster, and economic hardship should not only receive assistance. They should also have the resources, opportunity, and agency to shape their own recovery.
Respond to urgent needs
People should be able to access food, shelter, healthcare, clean water, education, and other essential support when crisis strikes.
Support recovery
Humanitarian assistance should help communities recover, rebuild livelihoods, and move toward greater long-term security.
Strengthen local leadership
Communities should have the resources and agency to identify their own needs and shape the solutions that affect them.
Listen to lived experience
People affected by conflict and displacement should be heard, understood, and represented as individuals rather than reduced to statistics.
Build understanding
Myanmar's stories, histories, and lived experiences should remain visible to audiences both inside and beyond the country.
Our Mission
Supporting communities. Strengthening understanding.
Better Burma supports people and communities affected by conflict, displacement, natural disasters, and economic hardship through humanitarian assistance and community-led initiatives.
We aim to address urgent needs while also supporting longer-term recovery through healthcare, education, livelihoods, shelter, food assistance, and other locally identified priorities.
Alongside this work, we help amplify voices and stories from Myanmar so that people around the world can better understand the country's challenges, communities, history, and lived realities.
Our Vision
A more compassionate, resilient Myanmar.
We envision communities with greater safety, opportunity, dignity, and access to the resources they need to recover from crisis and shape their own futures.
We also envision a wider world that listens more closely to Myanmar's people, understands the complexity of their experiences, and remains engaged with the country's humanitarian and social challenges over the long term.
Better Burma +
Insight Myanmar
Action on the ground. Understanding beyond it.
Better Burma focuses on humanitarian action and community support. Insight Myanmar is Better Burma's storytelling and media platform.
Through long-form conversations and other media, Insight Myanmar shares voices, experiences, and perspectives connected to Myanmar, helping audiences better understand the country's history, culture, humanitarian challenges, politics, and spiritual traditions.
Together, these two areas of work reflect our belief that meaningful support for Myanmar requires both direct assistance and a deeper understanding of what is happening inside the country and among displaced Myanmar communities beyond its borders.
Explore Insight Myanmar →Our Leadership
Guided by experience, commitment, and connection to Myanmar.
Joah McGee
Joah McGee is the Founder and Executive Director of Better Burma and the founder and host of the Insight Myanmar Podcast. His relationship with Myanmar spans more than two decades, beginning with his first visit in 2003 and deepening when he moved there in 2007. What began as a personal exploration of Burmese meditation traditions grew into years of immersion in the country's spiritual, cultural, and civic life.
He led the creation of Shwe Lan Ga Lay (The Golden Path), an extensive meditator's guide to Myanmar, later organized pilgrimages connecting practitioners with monasteries and teachers, and worked at the American Center at the U.S. Embassy Yangon supporting educational programs for Myanmar's emerging civil society.
In 2019, Joah founded the Insight Myanmar Podcast, creating a platform for the voices and experiences shaping Myanmar's spiritual, political, and social landscape. Following the 2021 military coup, the relationships and trust built over nearly two decades became the foundation for Better Burma, transforming a long-standing connection to the country into direct humanitarian action.
Today, his work brings together storytelling, advocacy, and grassroots relief, connecting international audiences and supporters with the people and communities of Myanmar.
Board of Directors
Better Burma's Board of Directors brings together experience in human rights, philanthropy, education, media, civil society, and long-standing engagement with Myanmar.
Phil Robertson
Phil Robertson is a veteran human rights advocate with decades of experience working across Asia, with particular expertise in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Formerly the Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, he now serves as Director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates.
His work has focused extensively on human rights, labor rights, migration, and the challenges facing Myanmar people displaced across the region. A longtime advocate for migrant and refugee communities, Phil brings deep regional knowledge and a commitment to ensuring that the experiences and rights of vulnerable communities remain at the center of humanitarian and human rights work.
Jonathan Crowley
Jonathan Crowley is a nonprofit development professional with over a decade of experience in major gift fundraising and more than two decades in nonprofit and private-sector program management. He currently serves as Director of Development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he works to connect donors with initiatives focused on education, wellbeing, sustainability, equity, and social impact.
Jonathan's connection to Myanmar extends well beyond his professional work. His decades-long meditation practice eventually brought him to Myanmar, where he developed relationships and experiences that created an enduring connection to the country and its people.
This personal history, together with his extensive experience in philanthropy, donor engagement, and nonprofit development, brings to Better Burma's board both a deep appreciation for Myanmar and practical expertise in building the relationships and resources needed to sustain mission-driven work.
Ken Pransky
Ken Pransky is an educator, author, and longtime contributor to Better Burma whose connection to Myanmar grew through his meditation practice and deep engagement with the country's Buddhist traditions. An educator for more than three decades, Ken is the author of Beneath the Surface and has taught learners from kindergarten through university and adult education in the United States and internationally.
Ken's relationship with Myanmar has also been expressed through years of quiet, sustained service. He worked closely with Joah McGee as an editor on Shwe Lan Ga Lay (The Golden Path), developing an extensive knowledge of the history and practice of Dhamma in Burma.
He has been part of Insight Myanmar since its earliest days, providing editorial support to the podcast, and has remained actively involved since the inception of Better Burma. Today, he continues to contribute his editorial experience to Insight Myanmar's written summaries and related work.
Thiri
Thiri is a Burmese media expert, democracy advocate, human rights documenter, and movement educator whose work has been deeply rooted in Myanmar's struggle for human rights, dignity, and democratic freedom. Her experience spans media and communications, civil society, nonviolent resistance, and the documentation of human rights and humanitarian issues.
Since the 2021 military coup, Thiri has remained closely engaged with networks inside Myanmar and across the diaspora, helping amplify local perspectives while advocating for humanitarian assistance that is conflict-sensitive and grounded in trusted community networks.
As a member of Better Burma's board, Thiri brings not only professional expertise but the perspective of someone whose connection to Myanmar is profoundly personal. Her commitment to preserving people's dignity, voice, and mutual care closely reflects the principles that guide Better Burma's work.
Our People
A team connected by commitment to Myanmar.
Better Burma's work is carried forward by a distributed team of humanitarian workers, producers, writers, researchers, translators, field partners, volunteers, and supporters working across Myanmar and around the world.
Because of the security environment surrounding work connected to Myanmar, we do not publicly identify or display every member of our team and partner network.
Protecting their identities helps safeguard people whose work, location, or community relationships could place them at risk.