The Roger H. Strait Memorial Foundation serves poor, marginalized, and under-served people through grassroots education and health care programs. The Foundation works through national partners which include churches and faith-based organizations, humanitarian organizations and other community and governmental institutions.
The Foundation is named after the third child of Chester and Florence Strait who were missionaries serving the Chin people in northwestern Burma during the years between the World Wars. Chester was an anthropologist and educator, while Florence served as a nurse, and both wrote books about their time in Burma. Their son Roger was born and raised in Hakha in the Chin Hills and lived there until 1942, evacuating just ahead of the Japanese invasion during World War II. Roger lived his adult life in New York City as a university professor.
Each night Roger told “jungle stories” to his children. The magical world of the Chin Hills lived in their imaginations for decades while Burma remained closed to the Western world. Roger died as Burma began to re-open to Western visitors. He never had the opportunity to return to the beautiful and beloved land of his childhood.
Shortly after his death, leaders in the Chin refugee community living in the United States invited Roger’s sons to visit the land now known as Myanmar. The Roger H. Strait Memorial Foundation’s educational and medical outreaches grew out of this visit and carry on the benevolence work of Roger’s parents in Myanmar and beyond.
The Chin People: A Selective History and Anthropology of the Chin People by Chester U. Strait
Chin Boy: Arrival and Incidents by Florence Strait