Our Plans for 2008

Our Plans for 2008

We have decided to spend the next year in Mae Sot on the Thai/Burma border. We are hoping that we will be able to offer help and support to the Burmese and Karen people living in the area. We fly out to Thailand on the 17th January and will probably spend a couple of days in Bangkok before heading north to Mae Sot. In Mae Sot we will catch up with friends and discuss what we are going to do in the time we are there. Below we have outlined some ideas we have for what we will do on the border:

Mae Tao Clinic.
Mae Tao Clinic is a refugee clinic on the outskirts of Mae Sot near the Thai/ Burma Border. www.maetaoclinic.org/aboutus.html )
The clinic has a children’s ward treating a wide variety of ailments. When a child comes to the clinic they are often accompanied by brothers and sisters as well as one of the parents. As they often live many hours travel away, they all stay at the clinic with very little to do. We would like to provide these children with an art and craft programme allowing them to develop creative skills and have some fun. Many of the children have come from jungle areas and have never experienced activities which children in our schools take for granted.

Teacher Training.
The Karen Education Department is responsible for about 60,000 children in migrant schools and schools in refugee camps and also schools inside the Karen State of Burma. We worked with the KED in 2005 and when we visited in the summer we discussed with them the possibility of doing some teacher training when we return next year. We hope we will be able to share different teaching methods and help them to extend their curriculum being aware of the limited resources that are available to them. We would like to look at how children with disabilities are catered for in the schools, (if at all), and maybe work out solutions for developing programs for these children with the department and the teachers.

Local Migrant Children.
We have a friend in Mae Sot who works very closely with the local migrant population. These are Burmese people who have come across the border to look for work and/or to escape the persecution of the government regime in Burma. These people live and work in very poor conditions. Very often the children are unable to go to school as they are required to go to work to help support the family. We would like to work with our friend to identify families where the children are very keen to go to school and possibly arrange some support for the families to enable the children to attend school instead of having to work or maybe some sort of programme to enable the children to have some education at alternative times.

Children With Disabilities.
We have been working with children with disabilities for a number of years in different settings both in the UK and in Australia. Whilst visiting different schools in the Mae Sot area, we have noticed that there are few, if any, children with special needs in the migrant schools. As there must be children with special needs in the area, we are interested in exploring where the children are and what sort of provision is available for them. This is a project we are very interested in as it is an area which is possibly very under resourced at present in the area.

Teaching.
As well as the projects mentioned above, we will be involved in teaching different subjects in the schools and with groups in the area. This will involve teaching computers to both students and teachers in the schools lucky enough to have them. Many different groups in the area are desperate to improve their English skills so there are always groups looking for people to teach English and also help them edit documents and proposals that have been translated into English.

We hope that you will support us in your thoughts and prayers over the coming year and if you feel you are able to help in any way, please let us know.