In the early 1980s, with the rise of violence against ethnic minorities in Burma, an initial wave of refugees from these groups arrived in Thailand and the first refugee camps were founded. Today, nearly 30 years on, there are seven of these camps.
Hidden in the jungle 232 km south of Mae Sot, Nu Po ("the little lake") is by far the most isolated camp. To reach it means making an exhausting six-hour trip by 4x4. The camp is managed by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) and is set up like a real village, with a governance committee, a hospital, schools, temples, a church, a market and a few restaurants and tea houses. It has officially existed since 1997 and now has around 18,000 residents or 3,000 families. Nu Po has 15 ethnic groups with five religions, but 84% of the residents are from the Karen ethnic minority. Around a dozen NGOs are active in the camp, helping to meet the refugees’ basic needs: housing, food, medical care, psychological counselling and education.
At first glance, conditions at the camp do not seem so bad. The people are safe, they have food (although they have only two meals per day, with quality and variety sorely lacking) and they are under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Yet the future is bleak for the residents – apart from immigrating abroad there are no prospects for the immediate future. While the children and young people are able to go to school, most camp residents have nothing to do and nowhere to go. They just sit and wait.
Most of the children arriving at the camp are accompanied by their parents, but in some cases the parents could not leave Burma, and other children are true orphans. All children at the camp without parents live at special children's homes managed by a camp committee staff member.
Last year we completed our first aid project for one of these homes, collecting and distributing warm blankets, games, reading material and other items to help make life more comfortable for the young people living there. Our hope with this new project is to return to the home, visit with our old friends again, meet the 20 new arrivals and carry out another aid project.
During the time we spent visiting with the children last year, we were able to learn more about their needs. They are avid learners in general but are particularly keen to improve their English, a language that they know is an essential factor in a successful placement in another country – especially the United States, a country which accepts a large number of Burmese refugees. Although the camp provides English lessons, opportunities to go beyond the lesson materials are sadly lacking as there are very few English-language books or other reading materials.
Our goal for this year’s project is to provide the children's home with English-language comic books to round out the collection of books we began to put together last year. This type of reading material is ideal for these children's needs because the illustrations in the books not only serve as motivation to learn to read the stories but also facilitate comprehension of the texts. Moreover, this type of reading material will provide a source of constructive entertainment for their free time. We plan to set up a lending system so that these materials can also be accessed by the residents of the camp’s other children's homes. Finally, in a later phase, we would like to give the children the opportunity to author their own comics. They may wish to use their camp experiences or their dreams for the future as topics – the essential goal is for them to experience creative expression.
No comments:
Post a Comment