Artit Gets an Award!

We have really wonderful news about Artit, one of our first scholarship recipients! In March, Artit’s mother traveled the three hours to Chiang Mai for his high school's graduation ceremony at the Empress Hotel. Though Artit was not graduating, he was being honored as an outstanding current student. On the way to Chiang Mai, Artit's mother told us that she was nervous, but also excited, given that it was the second time she had ever been to Chiang Mai. Her sister was supposed to pick her up from the bus station, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication and Artit’s mom couldn’t find her and had no way of contacting her. Though she briefly considered immediately buying a bus ticket to return to Pai, she gathered her courage to call Jo, one of our project managers, who was also planning to attend Artit’s ceremony. Jo picked Artit’s mother up and together they went to Jo’s guesthouse to get dressed.


When Artit’s mother saw Jo’s dress for the ceremony, she felt uncomfortable and nervous about her own casual clothing. Luckily, Jo took the time to convince Artit’s mother that the event was very special and that her being there was all that mattered. Eventually, the two of them found their way to the ceremony, stopping on the way to buy Artit a bouquet of flowers.


 The event was not merely celebrating the students’ graduation, a feat in and of itself. The school was also honoring specific students that showed special promise and distinguished themselves in their field. Artit was awarded one of these unique prizes! Surayud Chulanont, the former Prime Minister of Thailand, presented the awards on behalf of the king, evidence of how important and impressive the award truly is.

After the ceremony, Artit’s mother sheepishly presented the flowers to Artit and the three of them took pictures. Artit’s mom told Jo that she had never expected anything like this to happen – that it was a miracle. The whole day was quite overwhelming for her as she proudly watched her son receive special recognition from his teachers and peers. The award validated Artit’s hard work during the school year and further motivated him to continue with his studies.


After the ceremony Artit returned to Pai to be with his family. He is now searching for work experience while also looking to continue studying English, which he believes is a language that will increase and improve his opportunities. We are looking forward to seeing Artit’s future accomplishments as he completes high school in the coming years, enters the next stage of his life and undoubtedly continues to impress everyone he meets.

Montessori school opens

We are thrilled to announce that our Montessori preschool, the Banyan Center, has opened. Read more about the Banyan Center here.

legal clinic

We were fortunate enough last week to receive a visit from the Migrant Assistance Program in Chiang Mai. They provided a clearly articulated, well-organized overview of the migrants' rights to social and welfare services in Thailand, their process of potentially attaining Thai ID cards and nationality, and the different laws affecting their status in Thailand. The MAP folks also patiently answered many questions about specific legal cases and scenarios presented by our community members, taking notes so that they could follow up in the future. We are grateful that they were able to travel rather far and send several Thai- and Shan-speaking workers, all quite knowledgeable, to conduct the workshop/ legal clinic in our community-- after the refugees came home from work, at dusk, on a dirt path amidst the refugees' thatch-roof huts, by the light of single lightbulb on a string!

Clinton's Visit to Burma

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Burma this week, marking the first high-level visit to Myanmar in half a century. She met with the country's new president, Thein Sein, as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Partly because the military government has recently launched a series of reforms (including a promise to release 6,300 prisoners, including political prisoners, in October), Suu Kyi will participate in next year's elections, after her party boycotted last year's. Her National League for Democracy (NLD), will compete for 48 vacant parliamentary seats in the election.

Critics, however, remain wary of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and its election tactics, and urge foreign governments to pay close attention to Burmese politics for the next critical year before rewarding the military junta for its new political and economic policies.

Our refugee community's educational aspirations

Our BRP social workers and a Master's student at NYU recently completed a series of conversations with the refugee families on their educational aspirations and perceptions of the Thai school system. Their findings suggest that our community's children place a high value on education overall, but that they are uncertain of their ability to finish high school and go on to college-- because of financial reasons, discrimination, and lack of know-how.

Some highlights:

. 82% of those surveyed hope to finish university level studies.

. When asked “I don’t understand why I have to go to school when I won’t be able
to get a job after that,” 84% DISAGREED with this statement. When the NGO ZOA Refugee Care administered the same survey in refugee camps, only 69% of students DISAGREED with this statement.

. 58% of the refugee children answered "true" or "somewhat true" to the statement that they were "slow learners.

. 78.9% strongly agreed with the statement, "I feel comfortable in school," but only 42% did so when asked if they felt comfortable with their fellow classmates.

. Finally, the students take pride in their educational activities, but they are apprehensive about their parents (many of whom do not speak Thai and have never attended school) interacting with school officials. Thus, almost 70% wanted their parents to attend a graduation ceremony, but only 11% expected their parents to meet their teachers or help with homework.

These results suggest that the BRP has largely succeeded in relaying the importance of education to the refugee families, many of whom were resistant or felt uncomfortable sending their children to school at first. However, the results also suggest that the BRP staff continue to have their work cut out for them-- in terms of acting as cultural translators and institutional liaisons for families unfamiliar with what any schooling might be like, and helping the students to socialize, cope with stress and marginalization, excel and thrive in school.

Our community and their hopes of return to Burma

As mentioned in our July post, two master's students from England spent time systematically asking the refugees in-depth questions about their hopes for return to Burma, their liminal status in Thailand, and their best chances for a good livelihood along the Thai-Burmese border. We have been using the information they collected in our latest needs assessments for new services.

Among their findings are that many of the younger refugees stated that Shan State in Burma represented "home" to them, even though they were born in Thailand. More pragmatic factors, such as employment and Thai citizenship, tend to influence their place of residency but not their sense of home:

“I don’t want to go back because I have this house but of course Shan state is
always in my heart, my motherland (laughs).”

Still, for many, the political instability at home looms as large (or larger) as a "push" factor than the "pull" factor of economic prosperity in Thailand.

“I sometimes think about Shan state and I want to go back but I know it is too
dangerous. If Burma was peaceful and had no military [rule] like Thailand of course I
would go back.”

“I miss Shan state, but I don’t miss that people were so poor, and we could only just eat, and had to wear many old clothes stitched together. But in Thailand... it is easier to live and make money and even second hand clothes are so much better than in Shan state."

As the refugees have described to BRP staff before, Shan migrants in Thailand both feel like "caged animals" and second-rate citizens "below" Thai nationals:

“I am still scared to live in Thailand because they can still kill, arrest, do anything, although it is still safer than in Shan state.”

“If Burma is a peaceful and developed country I would go back because we have
land and garden there and in Thailand we have no human rights.”

At the same time, some also expressed a counternarrative, that the Shan performed essential tasks that Thais no longer desired.

Caught between such push and pull factors, the refugees' temporary residence is their only means of being-- As one woman described her guest worker visa, "This passport is my life."

Still a precarious situation for Burmese migrant workers in Thailand

The Thai government has just attempted yet another registration round for Burmese migrant workers. Most of the refugees served in the BRP community hold migrant worker visas that cost 3,800 baht a year (approximately $120, quite a hefty sum for day laborers) that tie them to specific occupations (i.e., sharecropping farmer, rock hauler, etc.) AND specific bosses. These bosses hold quite a bit of power over the migrants.

The new Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, has announced a new minimum wage in the country, and it remains unclear how these new wages will affect refugee workers, or even apply to them.

According to the Thailand section of the latest U.S. State Department survey of global trafficking trends, "Observers remained concerned that the process to legalize migrant workers with its associated fees, as well as costs imposed by poorly regulated and unlicensed labor brokers, increased the vulnerability of migrant workers to trafficking and debt bondage."

See the full article here: http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/3796.cfm