A Tribute to Mr. Edward
The Board of Directors of the Mary K Yap Foundation would like to extend our tribute to our beloved Board member, Edward Thaung, who passed away at the age of 73 on August 7, 2021, in Yangon, Myanmar.
Edward Thaung was a devoted Roman Catholic who stood by his religious convictions in supporting those in need. He was always available to lend his ears and share his valuable insights and experience with anyone who asked for help. As a faithful husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and mentor to many start-up companies, Edward Thaung touched many people with his candid personality, storytelling talents, and five decades of knowledge of the country’s regulatory and commerical affairs.
During his professional career, Edward Thaung counseled and advised many local and foreign companies on such diverse matters as company formation, taxation, investment proposals, criminal law, family law, international contracts, and dispute resolutions. His early years of legal work included serving as a Town Law Officer, Grade (4) Public prosecutor, and Pre-trial Legal Advisor to the police department, revenue, customs department, immigration, and other government departments. Among his notable contributions was his time as Senior Law Officer at the Attorney General’s Office (1989-1993) in coordination with other government bodies to successfully host the Rights of the Child Seminar in cooperation with UNICEF in Yangon. He redrafted new laws in coordination with the relevant Government departmental personnel and translated Myanmar legal statutes into English.
From 1993 to 1995, he was the Assistant Director for Environmental Affairs ‘Office’ and attended the United Nations Environmental Program UNEP Seminar as National Ozone Officer for Myanmar. For ten years, he held the Secretary to the Board of Directors position at Air Mandalay Limited from 1996 to 2006. He was responsible for company compliance with the relevant laws of Myanmar as the chief legal consultant to Petronas, World Trade Center Yangon, Awba Group, and Mandalay Productions, to name a few. In addition, he was appointed as visiting university law lecturer in 1996 to teach commercial law subjects in Master of Business Administration (MBA) classes in Yangon sponsored by the Institute of Economics, Yangon. For the past three years before his death, he served as the Chief Regulatory Officer for the KMA Group of Companies.
The work contributed by Edward Thaung was done with the utmost integrity and professionalism on behalf of the public and private organizations he served. Despite his busy schedule, he always found the time to give a hand to worthy organizations and individuals. Over the three years that Edward Thaung represented our Foundation board, we benefited from his legal advice and developed our sponsored programs in Myanmar in full legal compliance.
Our goal has always been to become a trusted partner to our donor community so that charitable funds make it to the orphanages that need the most help. With the help of Edward Thaung, we have become a trusted partner with local communities, positioning our organization to serve all orphanages in the country. So much of the success of our empowerment programs working with Myanmar orphans would not have been possible without the dedicated and faithful help of Edward Thaung. His passing represents a great loss to our organization and Myanmar.
