03/13/10
The title sounds like a ball game, but unfortunately instead it is, and has been since 2006, the color of shirts Thai people decide to wear based on their differing political opinions. When I was teaching English in Chiang Mai in 2006 there was a military coups to oust the Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, due to corruption charges. When he was not in the country the military took over Thailand removing him from his PM position and placing him in exile. He hasn’t returned since, because he faces a 2 year jail term if he does, but before he was removed from office he did manage to spark an ideology among many of the poor, rural Thai people that they deserve more visibility and support. There is a lot more history that goes into this, but ultimately what the coups and removal of the PM did was help to wedge the Thai people into two groups, the red shirts-those who support the old PM and the old form of government, and tend to be more rural, poorer people and the yellow shirts-those who removed this PM and supported the Coups, and tend to be more urban elite. The government hasn’t been very stable since the 2006 coups dissolved the constitution and parliament and attempted to rebuild it. The main problem now is that the red shirts believe when the new government was established it wasn’t done completely democratically and instead of the voice of the people being heard through elections, the government was established by mostly military supporters. This all leads now to the current huge demonstration under way in Bangkok at this exact moment.
Yesterday, Friday March 12th, the Red Shirts started to roll into Bangkok and strategically place themselves all over the city to get ready for the larger mass of people to flow in over the weekend preparing for the huge demonstration on Sunday with the full intention of overthrowing the Thai Government. The timing for this protest lands less than two weeks after a trial was completed where about ¾ of Thaksin’s wealth, which was frozen since 2006, was seized by the government. It is now Saturday at 12:30pm and as I continue to look up news articles and news reports they all are consistently saying currently there are approximately 10,000 demonstrators rolling into Bangkok with groups of red shirts entering the city as big as 4 miles long. There are military stops on the way into the city which the government states is to double check that there are no weapons coming into Bangkok, but the red shirts argue the checks are to prevent as many of them from entering the city as possible. The red shirts said they anticipate hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to be in Bangkok by Sunday and that they will not leave until change is made.
Unlike the military coups in 2006, labeled as a peaceful “bloodless” coups, I am much more worried about this one since there seems to be much more unrest among the Thai people. In my opinion, when the last coups happened it felt like it came out of nowhere with very little Thai population involved. Since the government was willing to do anything to get the PM out of office they kept the plan for the coups quiet until the PM was out of country. In 2006, although tankers did fill the streets in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, the King told the military to make it as peaceful as possible by smiling at people (especially foreigners..it felt very creepy to have a man in a tank holding a loaded rifle smile at you) as they passed since they didn’t want to damage their, very lucrative, tourism industry. Ribbons were tied onto the tanks, yellow and pink, of which the yellow was to symbolize the Kings color and peace (thanks for reminding me of this Mika). This time the story is a bit different because now, if a coups were to happen, it’s because the Thai people are dissatisfied with the current government and want a major change and are willing to go to extremities to get it. This time the Thai population is much more involved and if a coups does happen it will be to control the population of protestors and hold ground with the current government, which I believe is going to make it much more dangerous. I’m sure more to follow soon.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Karen Forced Repatriation
02/22/10
In May and June of 2009, around 3,000-4,000 Karen people were forced to flee their villages and aim for the refugee camps in Thailand because of the increased warfare between the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Burmese Military (SPDC). When they reached Thailand, for various reasons such as lack of space, they were not admitted officially into any of the 7 Karen formal refugee camps and instead were forced to establish a temporary camp closer to the border. It is now around 8 months later and the Thai government has decided they no longer want these people in their unofficial camps and have told them it is now time to go back. Problem being, not only is the warfare continuing but the land they once lived on is now covered in landmines that have been planted by those fighting in the civil war. The Thai government has assured those that the land is safe, but many do not believe this and are reluctant to return, especially after cases occurring only weeks prior where there are victims of the landmines. Karen human rights organizations, such as the Karen Women Organization, worked together to write appeal letters to the Thai gov’t pleading that they do not force these people back to a land that is unsafe. Below is the appeal letter KWO submitted to the Thai government:
Emergency appeal to the Royal Thai Government not to forcibly repatriate Karen refugees back to heavily land-mined zone
February 2nd, 2010
The Karen Women Organization is urgently appealing to the Royal Thai Government not to forcibly repatriate over 3,000 Karen refugees staying in Tha Song Yang, Tak Province, back to a heavily land-mined war-zone in Burma. The majority of the refugees are women and children.
This group of refugees have been told by the Thai Army that they must all be returned to Burma by February 15. The refugees were told that actions to remove them will begin on February 5th, this week. They are now living in fear of imminent forced repatriation into an area which is heavily land-mined, and where active conflict can re-ignite at any moment.
On January 28, the local Authority Thai Army and his men forced 50 refugees from this group back across the border between 9 to 11 am to start cleaning up their homes in the village of Ler Per Her in preparation for their return. This included 20 women and girls, some under 16 years of age.
However, KWO would like to state clearly that this area is not safe at all and refugees groups are not willing to return at this point in time. In recent months, five refugees from the area have been either injured or killed by landmines when slipping back into Burma to look after livestock they left behind. This included a 13-year-old boy whose leg was blown off in August last year, and a woman who was 8 months pregnant had her foot blown apart on January 18, 2010.
Blooming Night Zan, Joint Secretary 1 of KWO said, "This evidence of people stepping on the landmines is a sure sign that the situation is still very dangerous. Sending refugees back against their will into such a dangerous situation violates the international law of non-refoulement. Although the Thai government is not a signatory of the Refugee Convention, the KWO is very grateful to His Majesty the Thai King, and the Thai government, for a long history of kindness to refugees. We appeal to the Thai authorities now to show your humanitarian kindness again."
The Karen refugees fled from fighting in the Ler Per Her area in Karen State, Burma, in June 2009. The refugees were granted temporary refuge in three locations, Mae U Su, Mae Salit and Nong Bua, but have not yet been allowed to move to Mae La refugee camp in Tak Province. Since their arrival, local Thai authorities have repeatedly pressured the refugees to return home despite evidence that the area is still very dangerous.
The Karen Women Organization is gravely concerned at the planned forced repatriation of these refugees into such a dangerous area and we urgently appeal to the Royal Thai Government to halt the repatriation and continue to provide these refugees with protection on Thai soil.
END
Soon after these appeal letters were written and submitted to the government, the press got a hold of them and several press releases went out. The international community, especially Burmese campaigners, acted in lightening speed to put pressure on the Thai government to not continue with the forced repatriation. The international pressure worked and they soon stopped, yet according to the staff here the Thai soldiers on the ground continue to try and verbally manipulate the Karen people to return “willingly” by telling them that the International NGOs no longer want to feed them and they should leave. Although a lot of the Karens do not believe this, they still feel like they do not belong here anymore and are considering leaving anyways.
In terms of the organization I work with, KWO, since the Joint Secretary, Blooming Night, has been a very verbal and visible advocate for these Karen refugees, the organization is fearful of a Thai police raid at the office and since Feburary 5th have had days where they lock the door from the outside to give the image there is no one here, or close the office. Other similar organizations, like the Karen Human Rights Organization, have shut down operations all together at their offices and are working out of homes instead for the last month. Most of the Karens don’t believe that this is over and instead are worried it is just a matter of time before the Thai government tries this again. I am learning that statistically Thailand is actually one of the worst places for refugees because Thailand is not a signatory of the refugee convention, which basically means they are not formally obligated to assist in offering the basic rights to refugees, which gives them full leniency to do what they want with refugees in their own country.
The whole situation is incredibly sad to watch, but even worse is learning that this is often the way it works here, I just happen to be a witness to this round. Recently I was also reading about the Rohingya refugees from southern Burma who have tried to find safety and security in Bangladesh and by boating to Malaysia and was astounded by the human rights abuses of these people. I guess being Muslim in Burma makes you subhuman and these people aren’t even allowed any form of citizenship..in their own native country..Hard to even imagine there are much worse situations happening for the Burmese refugees than with the Karen people, but there are. I won’t go into it here, but worth learning more about.
In May and June of 2009, around 3,000-4,000 Karen people were forced to flee their villages and aim for the refugee camps in Thailand because of the increased warfare between the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Burmese Military (SPDC). When they reached Thailand, for various reasons such as lack of space, they were not admitted officially into any of the 7 Karen formal refugee camps and instead were forced to establish a temporary camp closer to the border. It is now around 8 months later and the Thai government has decided they no longer want these people in their unofficial camps and have told them it is now time to go back. Problem being, not only is the warfare continuing but the land they once lived on is now covered in landmines that have been planted by those fighting in the civil war. The Thai government has assured those that the land is safe, but many do not believe this and are reluctant to return, especially after cases occurring only weeks prior where there are victims of the landmines. Karen human rights organizations, such as the Karen Women Organization, worked together to write appeal letters to the Thai gov’t pleading that they do not force these people back to a land that is unsafe. Below is the appeal letter KWO submitted to the Thai government:
Emergency appeal to the Royal Thai Government not to forcibly repatriate Karen refugees back to heavily land-mined zone
February 2nd, 2010
The Karen Women Organization is urgently appealing to the Royal Thai Government not to forcibly repatriate over 3,000 Karen refugees staying in Tha Song Yang, Tak Province, back to a heavily land-mined war-zone in Burma. The majority of the refugees are women and children.
This group of refugees have been told by the Thai Army that they must all be returned to Burma by February 15. The refugees were told that actions to remove them will begin on February 5th, this week. They are now living in fear of imminent forced repatriation into an area which is heavily land-mined, and where active conflict can re-ignite at any moment.
On January 28, the local Authority Thai Army and his men forced 50 refugees from this group back across the border between 9 to 11 am to start cleaning up their homes in the village of Ler Per Her in preparation for their return. This included 20 women and girls, some under 16 years of age.
However, KWO would like to state clearly that this area is not safe at all and refugees groups are not willing to return at this point in time. In recent months, five refugees from the area have been either injured or killed by landmines when slipping back into Burma to look after livestock they left behind. This included a 13-year-old boy whose leg was blown off in August last year, and a woman who was 8 months pregnant had her foot blown apart on January 18, 2010.
Blooming Night Zan, Joint Secretary 1 of KWO said, "This evidence of people stepping on the landmines is a sure sign that the situation is still very dangerous. Sending refugees back against their will into such a dangerous situation violates the international law of non-refoulement. Although the Thai government is not a signatory of the Refugee Convention, the KWO is very grateful to His Majesty the Thai King, and the Thai government, for a long history of kindness to refugees. We appeal to the Thai authorities now to show your humanitarian kindness again."
The Karen refugees fled from fighting in the Ler Per Her area in Karen State, Burma, in June 2009. The refugees were granted temporary refuge in three locations, Mae U Su, Mae Salit and Nong Bua, but have not yet been allowed to move to Mae La refugee camp in Tak Province. Since their arrival, local Thai authorities have repeatedly pressured the refugees to return home despite evidence that the area is still very dangerous.
The Karen Women Organization is gravely concerned at the planned forced repatriation of these refugees into such a dangerous area and we urgently appeal to the Royal Thai Government to halt the repatriation and continue to provide these refugees with protection on Thai soil.
END
Soon after these appeal letters were written and submitted to the government, the press got a hold of them and several press releases went out. The international community, especially Burmese campaigners, acted in lightening speed to put pressure on the Thai government to not continue with the forced repatriation. The international pressure worked and they soon stopped, yet according to the staff here the Thai soldiers on the ground continue to try and verbally manipulate the Karen people to return “willingly” by telling them that the International NGOs no longer want to feed them and they should leave. Although a lot of the Karens do not believe this, they still feel like they do not belong here anymore and are considering leaving anyways.
In terms of the organization I work with, KWO, since the Joint Secretary, Blooming Night, has been a very verbal and visible advocate for these Karen refugees, the organization is fearful of a Thai police raid at the office and since Feburary 5th have had days where they lock the door from the outside to give the image there is no one here, or close the office. Other similar organizations, like the Karen Human Rights Organization, have shut down operations all together at their offices and are working out of homes instead for the last month. Most of the Karens don’t believe that this is over and instead are worried it is just a matter of time before the Thai government tries this again. I am learning that statistically Thailand is actually one of the worst places for refugees because Thailand is not a signatory of the refugee convention, which basically means they are not formally obligated to assist in offering the basic rights to refugees, which gives them full leniency to do what they want with refugees in their own country.
The whole situation is incredibly sad to watch, but even worse is learning that this is often the way it works here, I just happen to be a witness to this round. Recently I was also reading about the Rohingya refugees from southern Burma who have tried to find safety and security in Bangladesh and by boating to Malaysia and was astounded by the human rights abuses of these people. I guess being Muslim in Burma makes you subhuman and these people aren’t even allowed any form of citizenship..in their own native country..Hard to even imagine there are much worse situations happening for the Burmese refugees than with the Karen people, but there are. I won’t go into it here, but worth learning more about.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Greasing the Wheel
01/11/10
I just recently returned from the holiday break and currently entering the swing of things once again. Realizing I’ve been here for just under 5 months but I still have a ways to go for this Master’s degree. Even so, over the last 5 months I have been learning a lot and really excited about the accomplishments that have been made in this short time that have helped to “grease the wheel” here and keep things going smoothly. One major lesson I am learning while living in an atmosphere full of hardship, daily struggles and power abuses is that you really need to celebrate the little things that come into your life as they happen and just push forward for the next accomplishments; it’s the only way to keep your head above water. So here are the highlights up until this point to help remember what it's all about.
When I first arrived to KWO it was apparent my assistance was most needed in grant and report writing as well as with their daily communications with native English speakers through e-mails and visits to the office. The timing of my arrival hit the exact time many of the KWO Program Managers were hunting down funding for their programs for the 2010 calendar year, so my focus became mostly grant writing and donor relations. I’ve never helped to head grant writing before and it was something I was eager to do, yes for the experience, but also to have a deeper understanding of the process behind organizational fundraising initiatives, something that is a backbone to all service orgs. The first grant I worked on, for the Safe House program, was an arduous one. About 30 pages detailing all aspects of the program, 11 safe houses in 7 camps, and itemizing every element for budgeting purposes, took lots of patience and plenty of time. About one and a half months later, the grant and budget requesting around $79,000 was complete and not soon after a foundation that was aware of the program, and had offered emergency assistance in the past, took the whole program under its wings on a more permanent basis. I think I was more excited than most in the office when securing funding, which probably was due to the amount of personal time I put into the proposal combined with it being the first time I had helped on such a large scale. It just amazed me that we had managed to get funding for a year that now was going to cover 35 people’s stipends, reconstruction of 9 buildings, numerous trainings, food and everything else in-between. In this process I’ve also learned that in a location like Mae Sot, this is the exact way my assistance should be utilized, helping with international relations. As much as I love programming, the best people to take on those initiatives are the people who have “been there/done that”; the refugees themselves. Who better to run the safe houses on the ground level, speak up at community meetings and figure out the exact requirements of those in need than those who are part of the same system? My experience here has really opened my eyes to see, if I really want to help continue to make change in this world, the “ground level” isn’t the most effective place for me, at least internationally.
After this grant, we quickly moved on to work on the grant for the Dormitory program. This program, very similar to an orphanage program, was really struggling in one particular camp at one particular dorm. This proposal took a lot less time, since it was only aimed for one dormitory, and there was already a private donor interested in possibly funding the program once we had completed the proposal. A short time later the $18,000 proposal was completed and the donor secured. We are still working on partial funding for the other dorm in this particular camp, but the leads for donors this time are a bit shakier.
Besides the grant writing I have been holding (irregular) English classes for the staff and attending community staff meetings. A few days ago I attended my first UN community meeting, with the UNHCR, where the meeting was focused on how to give a 13 year old girl with Cerebral Palsy, that was abandoned by her family, proper care. It was an interesting meeting, if anything it showed how different organizations collaborate with each other and where some tensions may arise. In this case the girl has been in the camps for nearly 10 years but as time progressed, she seemed to have been “forgotten” in the larger system and her services began to lessen. This meeting was a reminder to everyone involved where exactly she still needed the most help. This meeting also showed how many organizations, and stakeholders, thrive in the Mae Sot area and therefore the importance of this organizations to work well together to keep things running smoothly. Lots of factors go into why organizations work well, or don’t work well together, and it can become even more difficult when there is a constant flux of new employees flowing in and out of these organizations combined with constant shift of the number and type of people who need assistance due to resettlement and migration.
Outside of this work, I have to remind myself I am also here to complete my Master’s degree. It’s tough to constantly try and pull myself back to the work, but my experiences here are too rich to allow them to pass by without using some of the content for the degree. To help with the degree, and also help build the capacity of the staff, I will be holding a training on January 25th for the staff that focuses on helping the staff increase their grant writing abilities as well as their own training skills, since a lot of the staff are trainers themselves. The first portion of the training will be on grant writing and the second portion will be dissecting the training techniques I used in the grant writing training they then could also use in their future trainings. Lots of planning still to do for this training, but I intend to use the training as the heart of my thesis, everything from what led me to decide to do this particular training, how the training went and the aftermath of whether or not the training was useful for the staff. I still have plenty of other work to do for school (such as these Thai language classes I have been, reluctantly and begrudgingly avoiding) so I will be doing everything to focus more and making this last 5-6 months here more academically useful, while still helping the programs at KWO to the best of my ability.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Meetings with Dr. Cynthia Maung
11/30/09 4:14 pm
Today I was invited to attend meetings at the Mae Tao refugee clinic in Mae Sot. I was surprised to see that the meetings were being held by the founder of the clinic, Dr. Cynthia Maung. As stated by the ever handy Wikipedia “Dr. Cynthia Maung…is a Karen medical doctor who since 1989 has lived in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burmese border. She left Burma…and has since run a clinic treating Burmese refugees, migrants and orphans at Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot…together with 100 paramedics and teachers…She received Southeast Asia’s Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership and she was listed as one of 2003 Time Magazine’s Asian Heroes. Altogether she has received six international awards for her work. In 1999, she was the first recipient of the Jonathan Mann Award…” Dr. Cynthia was also nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work as well. Needless to say, I felt very fortunate to attend meetings with Dr. Cynthia and hear her wealth of knowledge she provided during the two meetings. Below I have attached some notes of these meetings which give a different view of the issues surrounding this region of the world.
Meeting #1 10:30am-11am
· About 150,000 migrants in the Mae Sot area
· There are 60 migrant schools
· The Mae Tao clinic has been in operation for 20 years, as of 2009.
· Displacement is more and more aggressive-only 50% of those displaced in Thailand think they will go back to Burma soon while the other 50% have lost family/friends and do not think they will go back very soon
· Every year Mae Tao Clinic services around 1000 pregnant women, but this does not include all the women in the surrounding areas that the clinic did not help. Many babies are born outside of the clinic
· 2008 working on getting certificates for babies born in Thailand
· Network training in the IDP areas is part of the vision of the clinic
· Burma Medical Association (BMA) is professional (registered?) organization the clinic partners with to give medical services inside Burma
· Training and child protection are the #1 visions of the clinic
· Always working on upgrading the existing systems
· Trainers from many ethnic areas of Burma-clinic helps many ethnic groups
· ~40 new people a year receive initial trainings at the clinic to become medical assistants and midwives, then those that have been medical assistants and midwives receive additional training to be upgraded
· 10-20 years ago at the beginning of displacement, no educational programs yet to help people learn the basics, like reading and writing, but now migrant schools/education programs are established to help. Challenge now to still educate those that didn’t receive proper education, still at base level from 10-20 years ago, while still giving proper education to the children.
· ~10,000-20,000 children in these schools
· Nearly all of these people are not registered
· Barriers to the existing education system include school bus fees to send children to school (sometimes the parents can’t afford it) and the children needed at home to help with chores/physical assistance like farming exc.
· Only about 50% of the teachers are trained
· Many of the teachers need an additional job for income/hard to retain teachers
· Less than 1% of those that help in/with the clinic are Thais
· Need to know more of the Thai language and the Thai system of government in order to be a bigger part of it/advocate better
· Question: What are the Burmese Military thoughts of the clinic? The military/high ranking officer became very aware of the clinic and the large number of people who attend the clinic in 1995.
· Burmese military made rule that Burmese nurses and doctors can only visit the clinic a total of 3 times. This was to prevent them learning too much about the hardships of people at the clinic.
· Since 1995 there has not been further discussion about this rule
· Inside Burma medical assistance can happen fast because it is community based and very centralized
· The NGOs hold lots of meetings on health issues but the clinic is only invited to these meetings, not a central player
· On the service level there is a lot of collaboration
· Question: Why can’t the clinic register? Because nearly everyone is not registered that works for the clinic and the doctors and nurses are not properly licensed so the Thai government can’t register a place like this
· Question: After Laura Bush visited in August of 2008, did you see an increase in American help? After the visit, people feel more secure emotionally but financially not a lot has changed, still have to negotiate many ways to get funding-example FDA approval (?). The level of funding feels about the same. May be more money but still a lot of people to deal with.
· Up to 2005 had focused a lot on cross-border support but since 2005 refocused on assistance in Thailand mostly
· The clinic is not controlled by any one organization, instead is helped by several different sources so this makes it easy for the clinic to have leniency to grow due to the diversity of support
Meeting #2 11:30am-12:30pm
· In 2007 a coalition of several surrounding organizations was established
· Forum of community organizations created standardized policies
· Right now the coalition focuses on health, education and advocacy work mostly
· Examples include working on development projects, women’s issues, and children’s issues
· Clinic main medical service provider, serviced ~80,000 cases a year
· Child protection work is a main issue to focus on
· Main roll: to provide emergency/short term services, to create standardized policies and procedures and to work on the long term training needs
· Question: How do the donor relations work? The clinic has ~20 donors in total and 65-70% of the funding comes through grants, some government grants and some NGO grants. There are also independent contributions given on line that can help a lot since the online money is more flexible to use.
· Even though this is helpful, the clinic increases there services about 20% every year.
· Local community medical structure already exists inside Burma so BMA and those structures work together to provide what is most needed. Some of the BMA service providers need to hide in the jungles for 2-3 weeks due to security issues. 30% are displaced to other villages
· 81 teams with BMA, 3-5 teams work in one area. ~300 service providers/health workers
· People in Burma are constantly dealing with a combination of malaria, forced labor, displacement issues so it is always dangerous but it is their life. Still community itself forms their own medical assistance
· The community based orgs do not use the names of the unregistered helpers that provide services and materials from Thailand so that the Burmese militia cannot connect these services to these orgs
· The main implementing orgs are the community orgs
· The non-cease fire areas can be considered the most dangerous because providing medical assistance is considered illegal work
· When a whole community is displaced everything along with it, such as the food, school and hospital structures, disintegrate
· When the clinic started in 1988 it was first formed to help with the emergency medical needs then there was a need to set up cross-border assistance as well so needed to set up a local center in Thailand and coordinate with the community medical centers in Burma
· Question: How has the world recession affected the clinic? See most of the effects in the dry food rations. There is a need for the clinic to support dry food for approximately 3,000 people so approximately 150 baht is allocated per person for the month but when rates of food increase, often the funding does not, so the food rations need to be less per person in order for everyone to get food
· Every (year?) about 800 clients are referred to the Mae Sot hospital
· Often Thai people can get medical attention when needed right away, but those in Burma often need to travel 3-5 or 3-7 days to get to the clinic and receive medical attention.
· Every year the clinic needs to upgrade some of their facilities but this is a problem due to lack of finances so there can become issues with the water system exc.
· An example of an issue: A large scale, multi-year donor had to cut funding by 40% so the support was cut from 4 years to 3 ½ years and in the process also had to cut major funding to programs such as the HIV program
· Always a need to constantly train new people since resettlement often takes those that were trained
· Question: What are the clinic’s challenges? Funding, security (of health workers and social workers), children’s futures-after they receive education, in 10 years, what jobs will they get? What is the education system working towards?
· Question: How are the community organizations and the clinic creating standardized policies? What policies are important to establish? In 2005 a lot of commitment to child protection-standard of care was created for displaced children, now need to work towards how to monitor this. In the future need to have a similar approach to gender issues and human assistant policy.
· Right now main focus is on child protection and other protection elements
· Dr. Cynthia poses the question, how do we get the Thai government to look at the issues of child protection? Registrations? For the new generations need more support from the policy gov’t level.
· Key is the expansion of the militarization, this threatens the children’s lives
· For the clinic, before 1995 mostly assisted the Karen but since 1995 assist lots of different regions
Today I was invited to attend meetings at the Mae Tao refugee clinic in Mae Sot. I was surprised to see that the meetings were being held by the founder of the clinic, Dr. Cynthia Maung. As stated by the ever handy Wikipedia “Dr. Cynthia Maung…is a Karen medical doctor who since 1989 has lived in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burmese border. She left Burma…and has since run a clinic treating Burmese refugees, migrants and orphans at Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot…together with 100 paramedics and teachers…She received Southeast Asia’s Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership and she was listed as one of 2003 Time Magazine’s Asian Heroes. Altogether she has received six international awards for her work. In 1999, she was the first recipient of the Jonathan Mann Award…” Dr. Cynthia was also nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work as well. Needless to say, I felt very fortunate to attend meetings with Dr. Cynthia and hear her wealth of knowledge she provided during the two meetings. Below I have attached some notes of these meetings which give a different view of the issues surrounding this region of the world.
Meeting #1 10:30am-11am
· About 150,000 migrants in the Mae Sot area
· There are 60 migrant schools
· The Mae Tao clinic has been in operation for 20 years, as of 2009.
· Displacement is more and more aggressive-only 50% of those displaced in Thailand think they will go back to Burma soon while the other 50% have lost family/friends and do not think they will go back very soon
· Every year Mae Tao Clinic services around 1000 pregnant women, but this does not include all the women in the surrounding areas that the clinic did not help. Many babies are born outside of the clinic
· 2008 working on getting certificates for babies born in Thailand
· Network training in the IDP areas is part of the vision of the clinic
· Burma Medical Association (BMA) is professional (registered?) organization the clinic partners with to give medical services inside Burma
· Training and child protection are the #1 visions of the clinic
· Always working on upgrading the existing systems
· Trainers from many ethnic areas of Burma-clinic helps many ethnic groups
· ~40 new people a year receive initial trainings at the clinic to become medical assistants and midwives, then those that have been medical assistants and midwives receive additional training to be upgraded
· 10-20 years ago at the beginning of displacement, no educational programs yet to help people learn the basics, like reading and writing, but now migrant schools/education programs are established to help. Challenge now to still educate those that didn’t receive proper education, still at base level from 10-20 years ago, while still giving proper education to the children.
· ~10,000-20,000 children in these schools
· Nearly all of these people are not registered
· Barriers to the existing education system include school bus fees to send children to school (sometimes the parents can’t afford it) and the children needed at home to help with chores/physical assistance like farming exc.
· Only about 50% of the teachers are trained
· Many of the teachers need an additional job for income/hard to retain teachers
· Less than 1% of those that help in/with the clinic are Thais
· Need to know more of the Thai language and the Thai system of government in order to be a bigger part of it/advocate better
· Question: What are the Burmese Military thoughts of the clinic? The military/high ranking officer became very aware of the clinic and the large number of people who attend the clinic in 1995.
· Burmese military made rule that Burmese nurses and doctors can only visit the clinic a total of 3 times. This was to prevent them learning too much about the hardships of people at the clinic.
· Since 1995 there has not been further discussion about this rule
· Inside Burma medical assistance can happen fast because it is community based and very centralized
· The NGOs hold lots of meetings on health issues but the clinic is only invited to these meetings, not a central player
· On the service level there is a lot of collaboration
· Question: Why can’t the clinic register? Because nearly everyone is not registered that works for the clinic and the doctors and nurses are not properly licensed so the Thai government can’t register a place like this
· Question: After Laura Bush visited in August of 2008, did you see an increase in American help? After the visit, people feel more secure emotionally but financially not a lot has changed, still have to negotiate many ways to get funding-example FDA approval (?). The level of funding feels about the same. May be more money but still a lot of people to deal with.
· Up to 2005 had focused a lot on cross-border support but since 2005 refocused on assistance in Thailand mostly
· The clinic is not controlled by any one organization, instead is helped by several different sources so this makes it easy for the clinic to have leniency to grow due to the diversity of support
Meeting #2 11:30am-12:30pm
· In 2007 a coalition of several surrounding organizations was established
· Forum of community organizations created standardized policies
· Right now the coalition focuses on health, education and advocacy work mostly
· Examples include working on development projects, women’s issues, and children’s issues
· Clinic main medical service provider, serviced ~80,000 cases a year
· Child protection work is a main issue to focus on
· Main roll: to provide emergency/short term services, to create standardized policies and procedures and to work on the long term training needs
· Question: How do the donor relations work? The clinic has ~20 donors in total and 65-70% of the funding comes through grants, some government grants and some NGO grants. There are also independent contributions given on line that can help a lot since the online money is more flexible to use.
· Even though this is helpful, the clinic increases there services about 20% every year.
· Local community medical structure already exists inside Burma so BMA and those structures work together to provide what is most needed. Some of the BMA service providers need to hide in the jungles for 2-3 weeks due to security issues. 30% are displaced to other villages
· 81 teams with BMA, 3-5 teams work in one area. ~300 service providers/health workers
· People in Burma are constantly dealing with a combination of malaria, forced labor, displacement issues so it is always dangerous but it is their life. Still community itself forms their own medical assistance
· The community based orgs do not use the names of the unregistered helpers that provide services and materials from Thailand so that the Burmese militia cannot connect these services to these orgs
· The main implementing orgs are the community orgs
· The non-cease fire areas can be considered the most dangerous because providing medical assistance is considered illegal work
· When a whole community is displaced everything along with it, such as the food, school and hospital structures, disintegrate
· When the clinic started in 1988 it was first formed to help with the emergency medical needs then there was a need to set up cross-border assistance as well so needed to set up a local center in Thailand and coordinate with the community medical centers in Burma
· Question: How has the world recession affected the clinic? See most of the effects in the dry food rations. There is a need for the clinic to support dry food for approximately 3,000 people so approximately 150 baht is allocated per person for the month but when rates of food increase, often the funding does not, so the food rations need to be less per person in order for everyone to get food
· Every (year?) about 800 clients are referred to the Mae Sot hospital
· Often Thai people can get medical attention when needed right away, but those in Burma often need to travel 3-5 or 3-7 days to get to the clinic and receive medical attention.
· Every year the clinic needs to upgrade some of their facilities but this is a problem due to lack of finances so there can become issues with the water system exc.
· An example of an issue: A large scale, multi-year donor had to cut funding by 40% so the support was cut from 4 years to 3 ½ years and in the process also had to cut major funding to programs such as the HIV program
· Always a need to constantly train new people since resettlement often takes those that were trained
· Question: What are the clinic’s challenges? Funding, security (of health workers and social workers), children’s futures-after they receive education, in 10 years, what jobs will they get? What is the education system working towards?
· Question: How are the community organizations and the clinic creating standardized policies? What policies are important to establish? In 2005 a lot of commitment to child protection-standard of care was created for displaced children, now need to work towards how to monitor this. In the future need to have a similar approach to gender issues and human assistant policy.
· Right now main focus is on child protection and other protection elements
· Dr. Cynthia poses the question, how do we get the Thai government to look at the issues of child protection? Registrations? For the new generations need more support from the policy gov’t level.
· Key is the expansion of the militarization, this threatens the children’s lives
· For the clinic, before 1995 mostly assisted the Karen but since 1995 assist lots of different regions
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Border Run and More Fun
10/27/09 1:53pm
The Border Run
On October 25th I was required to go to Burma, on a “border run”, in order to validate my visa again. Before I left I had gotten a 3x multiple entry visa which is intended to cover the full required 6 months I need to be here for my internship. The problem is that nowhere on my visa does it indicate I had requested 60 day entries and usually they just give out routine 30 day ones, visa or not. This, obviously, is a problem for me since every time I enter Thailand now I need to figure out how I am going to convince the immigration officer that I should get 60 days instead of 30. The first time went well when I flew in and explained nicely I had made a request for 60 days in advance, and I assumed that with my first 60 day stamp it would be easier to get subsequent 60 day ones. Even so, I was still nervous to try since I kept on hearing from foreigners in Mae Sot that had to do runs that the officers were being strict and only giving 15-30 day stamps for walking in, not flying in. No matter, I still had to try my best.
The whole thing took no longer than 30-45 minutes, especially considering I had no intentions of spending any time in Burma, only going there to get my stamp. You have to cross by foot on the “Thai/Burma Friendship Bridge” which goes over a nice big river that divides the two countries. On my walk I was greeted by a Burmese man who spoke English well and was very keen to engage in lots of conversation. He told me all about the nice temples and beautiful places in Burma he wanted to show me and at this point I thought he was accompanying me on my walk because he was looking for some employment as a tour guide on the other side. I told him I wasn’t going to be staying, that I had friends waiting for me to get back (which wasn’t a lie) but this information did not put him off. He was wearing an FBI hat, I told him what it meant and he was humored by this but it also opened a door to talk about politics. He started to tell me how his boss isn’t a good manager and he is required to float materials illegally across the river. This actually wasn’t surprising news at all since if you look on either side of the bridge you can see people openly crossing in broad daylight with no authority attempting to stop them. In fact on my walk back I spent quite a lot of time taking photos of the “taxi” service, which includes a long rope and intertubes with “taxi drivers” that pull their customers in the tube across the river by this rope. More on that in a second but back to the story. This man continued to chat me up until he led me to a sketchy table a bit away from the Burmese immigration office which is where the new adventure began.
When we reached this table, this woman handed me a small make-shift sheet that was titled “Influenza Surveillance Form: Ministry of Health, Union of Myanmar”. What alarmed me the most, besides the fact it was requesting tons of personal and valuable information like my passport number and birth date, was the fact that no Burmese authority figure was requesting this information, instead it was this one man who had walked across the bridge with me and this woman. Once I was handed the form, I told the Burmese man that I would fill it out if requested by the immigration officer when I was receiving my stamp. He paused, had no response and we walked to the office where he opened the door for me.
The meeting was fairly quick, lots of people enjoying their lunch and the immigration officer I spoke with gladly took my 500 baht for a “stamp fee” (whatever, they don’t require that in Thailand, enough said), recorded all my info into a computer and I was soon on my way. Interesting, at no point did he ever ask for my Influenza form. When I left, the Burmese man was nowhere to be found. Hmmm. It made me wonder, was he just a part of some corrupt scheme his company had created to get foreigners’ information or was he working somehow with the Burmese Militia gathering this info for some other purpose? The latter option didn’t make sense to me since they had already recorded my info into their computer (again, this process isn’t done on the Thai side). Regardless, the whole thing was very sketchy.
Like I mentioned before on the walk back I saw several people using the “taxi” service. My favorite was a man leaving Thailand with a very large stuffed animal attached to him. There was also a family of about 6 in one tube with only one man pulling them along. Scary considering the size of the river and how heavy the currents are.
When I reached the Thai immigration office, I previously had dressed for the occasion by wearing a nice non-touristy shirt, and combined this with much patience, big smiles and a few lies and I got my 60 day visa with a promise of another 60 days if I visit the same immigration officer in 2 months. Very relieving! It’s nice to not have to think about it all for another two months.
More Fun
The reason why I am able to write this post in the middle of a workday is because of all the unexpected commotion today at the office.
So today I got ready to go to work like any other day. Once I got to the office I knew something was up when there was a padlock hooked into the door from the outside, but not locked. It completely looked like no one was in the building. I unhooked the lock, opened the door and it was pitch black inside with no people to be found. I entered anyways and went to my desk in the other room where I found only one other staff on the computer. I asked “where is everybody?” she said “didn’t you hear?” I said no and she told me that today is the day the Thai police will come to raid the office. They haven’t actually raided the office since 2008 but they tend to pick times linked closely to political uprising happening in Burma. In 2008 it was the creation of a new constitution while now it is related to the 2010 elections. The Thai police this time are worried plans are being created by organizations like KWO to do anti-Burmese protests, or other schemes, to counter the much anticipated 2010 Burmese election. The Thai government likes to make a point they are against these protest acts because they don’t like to be considered enemies of Burma since they receive a large percentage of their natural resources, such as gasoline, from them. It’s all very political, but what that means for KWO and myself is that there may be more and more frequent occurrences like this the closer we get to the 2010 election, which is still TBA, and intended to stay that way.
Anyways, I wasn’t sure what to do so the staff member called one of the more senior staff and she told me to wait in the office, do pretend work, until she could come and explain things to me more in detail. So I sat with the one other staff member for about an hour and started to become more and more anxious so she called the other staff member again then we talked on the phone instead. She simply said “today we have security issues, it’s better to come back tomorrow”, ok, so the other staff member and I both left very soon after. As far as I know, no one was caught but they are going to let me know if the security issues are still uneasy tomorrow. I’m sure more on that later.
*Update*
10/29/09
The KWO staff was ok during the day of the raid, but several other locations were raided and some people arrested. At least this time no one was injured.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The "Family" Outing
10/07/09 5:16pm
Last Wednesday one of the staff members came up to me with a few other staff members giggling and hesitating to talk to me. One of the KWO staff then said “we want to ask you something, be we are embarrassed to”. I told her she could feel comfortable asking me anything and eventually she asked me if I would like to join them for a “how do you call it”-eventually we figured out-barbeque. I was a bit confused with where it would be happening but it sounded like it was down the road somewhere. She was worried they wouldn’t have vegetarian dishes for me, very sweet of her, but I told her that if it was a restaurant to not worry I’m sure I could find something.
Friday rolls around and just before 5pm everyone starts quickly gathering their things to leave, so I did as well. I walked out the front door and there was a truck sitting there JAM PACKED with people sitting all over in the back, people I had never seen before but I learned people that all lived within the same living quarters next to the office. I wasn’t quite sure where to put myself so one of the staff said in the back seat. She opened the door and all you could see was about 6-8 people crammed in the front and back, not remotely room for one more person, not to mention a large girl like myself (especially when compared to most of the people here). I instead crawled in the bed of the truck with about 10 others, squatted and about 15-20 of us were on our way.
The drive wasn’t so bad but it felt much longer in a squatting position. We arrived and I noticed it was one of the restaurants I pass daily when I bike back to town. The restaurant was mostly empty even though it seats about 100 or so, but we sat near the back anyways. When we were seated some of the restaurant staff started to come out with plates and plates of “goodies”. I will just say, the BBQs here are just a tad different than back at home! On the plates were fresh squid, pig livers, pork, some unidentifiable meats and, the international meat, chicken. The barbecue’s themselves were things I’ve never seen before. They were large ceramic pot like things with holes on the sides that were placed sporadically along the table. They had hot charcoal in them and on top there was a metal piece that was shaped like a..hmmm..almost reminds me of an angel food cake mold, where it has a protruding top part-to give the cake its hole- but a circular base with a lip to hold liquid. Ok, that didn’t make much sense but if you could picture that upside down and placed on top of the barbeque then the protruding part is the part where the meats were put on to cook and the circular base with a lip is where the water is poured so it can boil and be used as a soup after putting meats and veggies in it. (I forgot my camera, very disappointing).
For HOURS we all sat there, heating up the meat, adding new water, boiling vegetables and rice noodles in the water and chatting with husbands, wives, cousins, friends, staff, neighbors, babies and all. I learned from the staff that they only go to this barbeque about once every 3-6 months because it is too expensive for them to go frequently, and the only reason why they were able to go this time was because a donor was treating them to the outing. The cost of the meal per person is 99 baht or $3 each. From the time we showed up to the time we left the place had completely filled up, there were at least 100 people there if not more. Also the restaurant staff made a buffet of extra vegetables and items to grill as well as dessert jelly pieces that you combine with ice and sugar flavored syrup, very tasty stuff!
Leaving was almost as adventurous as the meal. Since I can’t understand what’s happening half the time, due to the fact everyone speaks Karen, I didn’t realize that a bunch of people were leaving in groups because it had begun to rain and people were trying to prevent being in the back of the truck on the way back (at least I think that’s what was happening). So the first batch decides to take off and I was getting anxious to leave after a while since it had start to rain and also was getting very dark, something I didn’t consider before, yet I still needed to bike back. So the truck had already begun to leave when I asked if I could catch a ride. It was no problem because others decided at the last minute as well, so a big group of us began to run outside to reach the truck, then I realized we needed to run much farther than expected, across the median onto the other side of the road. I think we needed to get in the truck farther away because it needed to turn around before anyone could get into it due to security since there was a police checkpoint at the same location where the truck needed to circle around. Once the truck was ready for us, we all started to run in a group and scramble to get into the truck as quickly as possible to avoid the rain/security and quickly be on our way. We were just fine then upon arrival back to the office, the staff quickly said good bye and ran inside to not get wet. Pretty funny, here I was standing at my bike alone, in the rain, and the dark, in the country 3 kilometers way from town. All I could think was, how did I exactly get to this point? No matter, I biked like a fiend back to town and hoped upon hope I wouldn’t be attacked by the lovely dogs that run in packs in the night. I was just fine, but definitely out of breath when I arrived back home.
Last Wednesday one of the staff members came up to me with a few other staff members giggling and hesitating to talk to me. One of the KWO staff then said “we want to ask you something, be we are embarrassed to”. I told her she could feel comfortable asking me anything and eventually she asked me if I would like to join them for a “how do you call it”-eventually we figured out-barbeque. I was a bit confused with where it would be happening but it sounded like it was down the road somewhere. She was worried they wouldn’t have vegetarian dishes for me, very sweet of her, but I told her that if it was a restaurant to not worry I’m sure I could find something.
Friday rolls around and just before 5pm everyone starts quickly gathering their things to leave, so I did as well. I walked out the front door and there was a truck sitting there JAM PACKED with people sitting all over in the back, people I had never seen before but I learned people that all lived within the same living quarters next to the office. I wasn’t quite sure where to put myself so one of the staff said in the back seat. She opened the door and all you could see was about 6-8 people crammed in the front and back, not remotely room for one more person, not to mention a large girl like myself (especially when compared to most of the people here). I instead crawled in the bed of the truck with about 10 others, squatted and about 15-20 of us were on our way.
The drive wasn’t so bad but it felt much longer in a squatting position. We arrived and I noticed it was one of the restaurants I pass daily when I bike back to town. The restaurant was mostly empty even though it seats about 100 or so, but we sat near the back anyways. When we were seated some of the restaurant staff started to come out with plates and plates of “goodies”. I will just say, the BBQs here are just a tad different than back at home! On the plates were fresh squid, pig livers, pork, some unidentifiable meats and, the international meat, chicken. The barbecue’s themselves were things I’ve never seen before. They were large ceramic pot like things with holes on the sides that were placed sporadically along the table. They had hot charcoal in them and on top there was a metal piece that was shaped like a..hmmm..almost reminds me of an angel food cake mold, where it has a protruding top part-to give the cake its hole- but a circular base with a lip to hold liquid. Ok, that didn’t make much sense but if you could picture that upside down and placed on top of the barbeque then the protruding part is the part where the meats were put on to cook and the circular base with a lip is where the water is poured so it can boil and be used as a soup after putting meats and veggies in it. (I forgot my camera, very disappointing).
For HOURS we all sat there, heating up the meat, adding new water, boiling vegetables and rice noodles in the water and chatting with husbands, wives, cousins, friends, staff, neighbors, babies and all. I learned from the staff that they only go to this barbeque about once every 3-6 months because it is too expensive for them to go frequently, and the only reason why they were able to go this time was because a donor was treating them to the outing. The cost of the meal per person is 99 baht or $3 each. From the time we showed up to the time we left the place had completely filled up, there were at least 100 people there if not more. Also the restaurant staff made a buffet of extra vegetables and items to grill as well as dessert jelly pieces that you combine with ice and sugar flavored syrup, very tasty stuff!
Leaving was almost as adventurous as the meal. Since I can’t understand what’s happening half the time, due to the fact everyone speaks Karen, I didn’t realize that a bunch of people were leaving in groups because it had begun to rain and people were trying to prevent being in the back of the truck on the way back (at least I think that’s what was happening). So the first batch decides to take off and I was getting anxious to leave after a while since it had start to rain and also was getting very dark, something I didn’t consider before, yet I still needed to bike back. So the truck had already begun to leave when I asked if I could catch a ride. It was no problem because others decided at the last minute as well, so a big group of us began to run outside to reach the truck, then I realized we needed to run much farther than expected, across the median onto the other side of the road. I think we needed to get in the truck farther away because it needed to turn around before anyone could get into it due to security since there was a police checkpoint at the same location where the truck needed to circle around. Once the truck was ready for us, we all started to run in a group and scramble to get into the truck as quickly as possible to avoid the rain/security and quickly be on our way. We were just fine then upon arrival back to the office, the staff quickly said good bye and ran inside to not get wet. Pretty funny, here I was standing at my bike alone, in the rain, and the dark, in the country 3 kilometers way from town. All I could think was, how did I exactly get to this point? No matter, I biked like a fiend back to town and hoped upon hope I wouldn’t be attacked by the lovely dogs that run in packs in the night. I was just fine, but definitely out of breath when I arrived back home.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Second Wave
9/30/09 4:22pm
They are calling it the “Second Wave of Saffron Revolution” which is intended to take place starting 7:30am this Saturday, October 3rd, 2009. Last night while out, Ashin Sopaka, the monk that lead the peace walk discussed in the previous post, came out to talk about this second wave. He said that the monks in Burma will be acting in unison to head to the streets and protest, once again, about the way people are being treated in Burma. The Burma Digest states:
The Buddhist monks of Burma have delivered an ultimatum to the Burmese military government: If the government will not apologize for and stop the persecution, assassination and contempt of Buddhist monks and the people of Burma… a second wave of the Saffron-Revolution including demonstrations of the monks will take place, starting on October 3rd in Burma.
In solidarity, demonstrations in Thailand and the USA (that took) place:
- 21st September: Peace march in Mae Sot, northern Thailand led by the exiled Burmese monk Ashin Sopaka
- 23rd September: Protest at the UN Headquarters for 2nd Anniversary of the Saffron Revolution
Currently the All Burma Monk Alliance (ABMA) is organizing members at the monastery schools across Burma to unite. From what I hear the military is most threatened by protests from monks since they are highly respected individuals in their society and therefore hold a lot of strength when it comes to demonstrations/revolutions. In the past other forms of protests by the monks have included denying blessings to military personnel, which I guess is the ultimate slap-in-the-face. It’s interesting to me how some of the staff hasn’t heard about this yet which makes me wonder how large of a revolution it will be. Regardless, the ball is a rollin’ and it’s worth keeping an eye on.
They are calling it the “Second Wave of Saffron Revolution” which is intended to take place starting 7:30am this Saturday, October 3rd, 2009. Last night while out, Ashin Sopaka, the monk that lead the peace walk discussed in the previous post, came out to talk about this second wave. He said that the monks in Burma will be acting in unison to head to the streets and protest, once again, about the way people are being treated in Burma. The Burma Digest states:
The Buddhist monks of Burma have delivered an ultimatum to the Burmese military government: If the government will not apologize for and stop the persecution, assassination and contempt of Buddhist monks and the people of Burma… a second wave of the Saffron-Revolution including demonstrations of the monks will take place, starting on October 3rd in Burma.
In solidarity, demonstrations in Thailand and the USA (that took) place:
- 21st September: Peace march in Mae Sot, northern Thailand led by the exiled Burmese monk Ashin Sopaka
- 23rd September: Protest at the UN Headquarters for 2nd Anniversary of the Saffron Revolution
Currently the All Burma Monk Alliance (ABMA) is organizing members at the monastery schools across Burma to unite. From what I hear the military is most threatened by protests from monks since they are highly respected individuals in their society and therefore hold a lot of strength when it comes to demonstrations/revolutions. In the past other forms of protests by the monks have included denying blessings to military personnel, which I guess is the ultimate slap-in-the-face. It’s interesting to me how some of the staff hasn’t heard about this yet which makes me wonder how large of a revolution it will be. Regardless, the ball is a rollin’ and it’s worth keeping an eye on.
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