On the Border

2006-10-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

After a meeting with some of the key people in the MTC’s Counseling Center, our excitement for the center’s impact grew even more! With counseling trainings in advanced topics, center & case documentation, and mental health assessments being conducted by some of the BBP psychologists and knowledgeable locals, we are really seeing the center come to life. This may sound like dull technical language; but, what it means is that we are really piecing together what will be a pivotal point in providing refugees and illegal migrants the tools they need to overcome the obstacles in life that trauma can bring.

Also in the spirit of moving forward, we are happy to increase our funding to SAW for school transport and art activities. Being one of the very few providers of education for the Burmese migrant community, SAW does an impressive job of using what resources it has to make schooling as accessible and beneficial to as many children possible; and we are excited to help in their mission!

In taking another step with SAW, as well as the Karen Women’s Organization, I am currently working on developing BBP’s involvement with these groups’ income-generation programs. These programs have a triple affect: building the capacity of displaced Burmese women through trainings in vocational skills; gaining empowerment by providing the opportunity to help support themselves and their families; upholding the cultural practice of traditional weaving and clothing. We are looking forward to help in all capacities possible (finding sellers, marketing assistance, etc.) More on this later; guaranteed.

The volunteer program has also made leaps forward, increasing three-fold in the amount of volunteers. We have had the privilege of connecting more passionate skilled people to different community organizations who could use their time and hope to continue with this.

The feeling of moving forward is certainly an exhilarating one. It is no surprise to anyone here in this little town that the situation in Burma is a complex one that requires an unbelievable degree of endurance to keep hope. But: when you move forward, those little steps can certainly make miles of improvement and is something definitely worth while to stop and appreciate.

2006-09-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

In a comical exchange of each others’ childhood mischief stories with a buddy from SAW, we agreed on how much lighter the world seemed on our shoulders as young girls.

Yet, funny how the mood of a conversation can turn within seconds, as we were quickly reminded of just how relative such a statement can be.

“Moses is gone,” she said in a whisper, after a break in the discussion, with her stare firmly on the ground. Moses is a three-year-old boy whose parents both died of AIDS in last couple years. He was one of the children living in the safe house; he was said to be a lovable and unusually sharp boy. In a sudden turn in his health condition, they sent him to the Mae Tao Clinic on Monday. As comfortably as possible, Mae Tao took care of him until Wednesday morning, when he passed away. “This is the first time this has happened. I feel like I can still see his spirit in the house; it is hard to stay there for any length of time…” she said. I wasn’t quite sure what to respond with. I dared not to follow with what was actually going through my head: that there is no excuse that so many children have to feel some of the world’s biggest burdens on their shoulders-- a world of violence, torn families, a lack of a place to call “home”-- before they even hit double digits in age.

Without thinking, I just opened my mouth and prayed something would come out that would break the drained look on her face. “I know this is a hard time; but you can’t forget the countless children, who are given the chance to spend their childhood revolved around laughter, games, and the biggest daily terror being too much homework.” I was relieved that a statement so true was able to make her crack a smile—her humble confirmation of her awareness of SAW’s impact on these children’s lives—knowing that, because of them, so many children have the chance to smile throughout the day and reclaim their pending adulthood.

Not only SAW, but so many groups here on the border are working to alleviate the devastation of this disease. From medical assistance at clinics such as Mae Tao, to general care by women’s groups such as SAW, to prevention efforts by community development groups such as DARE, the risks and consequences of HIV/AIDS are being taken very seriously. And, rightly so-- as the displaced Burmese community is said to be one of the communities with the fastest expansion rate of HIV/AIDS in the world.

We at BBP gladly play our part in building the capacity to deal with the psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, as well as supporting the efforts of some women’s groups in their caretaker roles for the community. Acknowledging the intolerable escalation rate, we hope to develop our role in the community's response to this dilemma.

2006-09-12T07:38:00.001-07:00

1,800,000 Burmese.
With 200,000 being refugees currently in camps, 1.5 million being internally displaced, and roughly100,000 illegal migrants, this is the raw estimate that is made of the number of people who have had to flee their homes for the following reasons:
a. You are born an ethnicity that the government is targeting, poorly masked as attempt to halt “opposition for the security of the country.”
b. You are rumored to be in association with an ethnicity the government is targeting.
c. You have either participated (or expressed desire to) in any activity or discussion that involved political or social change.
d. You are associated (whether it be family, friend, or neighbor) with someone who has or is rumored to be politically involved.
e. You have refused to either provide extreme taxation—with no social benefits—or forced labor imposed upon your community by the government.

3,000+ villages.
This is the under-estimated number of villages that have been raided and destroyed beyond livelihood in a campaign to squash anything on the scale of armed opposition to expression of discontent.

99,000 patients.
The number the Mae Tao Clinic cares for, treating everything from rape injuries, lacerations, gun-shot wounds, and burns from villages attacks to landmine injuries to the diseases that accompany life in the jungle as internally displace people.

18 years.
The amount of time that has passed since the open-fire killing spree by the SPDC on the democracy demonstrators on August 8th, 1988. In this timeframe, an number of lives that have been lost, incidents of rights stripped, and citizens that have deliberately gone without the basic means for living are beyond calculation Yet, 18 years has passed and the hopes for democracy and an end to the ethnic attacks in Burma still cannot be crushed.

I’m normally not a numbers-person; but, it is hard to get these out of my head.

With so much discussion on the actual activity that BBP partners with, there’s simply not enough space to discuss in detail the human rights disaster that is Burma. But, I did want to provide a few of the numerous sources that does-- so, please visit the following sites if you are interested in learning more:
Amnesty International Country Report: Myanmar/Burma
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/myanmar_burma/document.do?id=ar&yr=2006
Myanmar (Burma) - Leaving Home
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/myanmar_burma/document.do?id=ENGASA160232005
Human Rights Watch: Asia: Burma
http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=asia&c=burma
Karen Human Rights Group 2006 Report
http://www.khrg.org/khrg2006/index.html

Take care,
Danielle

PS:
21 years.
This is the time I would face in inhumane prison conditions, had I written this entry to you as a Burmese citizen. Seven for unregistered use of internet, seven for discussing the Burmese political situation, seven for creating a medium intended for “distribution.”

2006-09-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

It’s about that time when BBP starts to coordinate Dr. Jack McCarthy’s next trip to Mae Sot and, in the process, I got to know and further appreciate one of our partners: the Violence Against Women Regional Working Team. Comprised of an impressive line-up of women’s community organizations, this team tends the overwhelming flood of women arriving to Mae Sot in dire need for care. Everything from safe-housing to modest financial support to counseling, these groups run off of a shoestring budget to provide countless survivors of rape and abuse the opportunity to look onward. We have the pleasure to work together in establishing a network of women with the ability to provide helpful counseling to the many women understandably handicapped with trauma. Yet-- as brought up in discussion with the team’s coordinator-- as the regime’s assault is growing in rate and brutality, these groups are in need of more and more support.

Even after crossing the border, the danger is still imminent. I was reminded of my comparatively comfortable position here in Mae Sot (and the degree of continuous vulnerability these women face) when the coordinator was telling me about a woman her group struggled to support this past week. In attempt to cross to border to meet with her husband and find work, this woman, with her twin babies, were stopped at the check-point while in the car with her husband. With her husband fleeing the car with the money she would have had to bribe her way out, she was arrested by the Thai police and sent to jail. After being repeatedly raped by two of the officers on the way to jail, she spent three nights there separated from her children. Exiting the prison only to find out that her children were not cared for and one had died during her time there, she went right to the Palaung Women’s Organization in exasperation, pleading for temporary shelter and help to travel to her family. The group put together what they could and was able to get her to her family and provide some counseling in the meantime of her departure.

Feeling sense guilt for my ability to not have to worry about these horrors (simply due my place of birth), all I could respond with was wholeheartedly saying that we will support them as best as possible to take on the abundance of troubles these groups face when trying to provide a sense of comfort and hope.

Needless to say, we are excited to continue to offer counseling training and support to these groups who graciously tackle some of the most daunting issues for the Burmese women.

2006-09-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

The past week has been full of planning, celebrating, and wishing.

After a few meetings with one of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, we are in the beginning steps of planning a counseling center for former political prisoners and their family members. After a daily routine of inhumane conditions, border-line starvation, and continuous physical abuse (not to mention the constant reminders of the brutal conditions of Burma that the political prisoners were working to change) it is only assumed that countless face such an immobilizing degree of trauma. In request from a couple friends at AAPP, we are now happily working together to create a team of AAPP counselors and setting up a place for these people to turn to.

The planning ensues as BBP is helping to coordinate the Burma Roundtable, a bi-monthly meeting place for community groups active in Mae Sot to stay up-to-date with the situation and learn about how their counterparts are involved. While these efforts have been made on larger scales previously, the community groups who are the ones housing, feeding, and caring for the endless flow of those in desperate need are themselves on constant guard for their own safety. With a meeting point that is safe and accessible, BBP looks forward to be active in working towards a greater sense of community and cohesion in the multi-layered response to the Burmese regime’s brutality.

In the midst of all the organizing, there is always time for celebration! While the work BBP and our supporters take on is daunting, the many successes are worth a celebration because they literally mean the difference of life to countless. We had the fortune of celebrating with SAW the news that the Children’s Crisis Center (which houses and cares for roughly 40 abandoned children) has received the funding it needs to keep on.

Yet, it seems for every hurdle you jump another is right in your face. While in a meeting on gender issues, we were continuously faced with the dilemma of finding refuge for sexual violence victims who make it across the border. In response, folks at BBP, SAW and the Mae Tao Clinic are wishing (and looking) for the funds for a safe house specifically for rape victims. As the number of survivors who go to Mae Tao in hopes of care and safety increase, the current facilities for offering those who are getting the medical care at the clinic a safe place to rest their heads at night becomes over capacity. This is why, in agreement between SAW and Mae Tao, if we could get our hands of the ability to build another safe house, SAW could take in these women and children who are referred by Mae Tao to better provide these people with the care they so deserve. Crossing our fingers as we explore this option…

Take care,
Danielle

2006-08-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

The smile is stretched cross- continent as the staff at the Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot and the BBP team and supporters in the States are marking the start of a huge step for addressing mental health on the Thai-Burma border. The new Counseling Center is underway, as the building plans are now being discussed.

The Counseling Center will be the focal point in MTC for any issues related to trauma and mental health problems. It will do this by providing counseling services, facilitating counseling & mental health awareness trainings and meetings, creating independent counseling curriculum and documentation, and housing resources for dealing with relevant dilemmas. The center’s staff will be comprised of counselors with a range of experience and will have a constant agenda of fostering experience and developing new counselors.

While trauma isn’t as visible as some severe medical injuries—it oftentimes paralyzes the victims just as well. Thus, we are excited for the anticipated two-fold impact: those who have already been trained in addressing trauma issues can now practice, develop their abilities, and independently incorporate these skills in the community AND people who are wounded from the natural trauma that ensues such gross abuses now have a stable place to turn to, be cared for, and take another step in reclaiming their future!

On another note, it was Thai mother’s Day this past week and we at BBP, in viewing the bittersweet holiday, were reminded of why it is so essential to continue supporting SAW’s efforts to care for children who have no family to turn to. When the SAW middle-school’s principal requested that all the children call their mothers to thank them, you could see the enthusiasm beaming in many children’s’ faces and the anguish in many others in within one blink of an eye. The silver lining is that (for those unlucky children who do not know where-- or even if-- their mothers are living) the amazing staff at Social Action for Women provide stable shelter and warm care. While sitting next to SAW member Thin Thin at the Mother’s Day reception, I turned to her and whispered “What you do is amazing; you are angels—their angels.”

For more information on their school; you can look at the Winter-end Quarterly in our Publications section, under “Media.”

Take care,
Danielle

2006-08-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I spent almost all of the 8-hour bus from Bangkok to Mae Sot in my travels engaged in warm conversation with the woman sitting next to me, traveling with her younger sister and baby niece. She shared with me her blanket, food, and philosophies on family, friends, and contentment. Within the last half hour of our bus ride, the bus stopped, and she & her family abruptly scrambled their things together to rush off the bus. Baffled and embarrassed of my naivety, I asked a Thai girl, “What is going on and why is the family alarmingly taking off?” It was a checkpoint, where Thai police check the buses for drugs and illegal Burmese migrants; and, they were Burmese. There are three possibilities from there: bribe the police to continue her travels, detention, or deportation back to the country she struggled to escape from.

Welcome to Mae Sot.

It has been about three weeks since my move to Mae Sot, Thailand. Within this brief moment of time, I have come across to most appalling and moving of accounts.
Hearing the stories of these people, the struggles, the abuses, and the every-day obstacle of simply living safely, cannot help but push you beside yourself. Yet, at the same time, this bustling little border town is packed with an energy full of light. I have met some of the most courageous and compassionate of people (who are often victims of unspeakable cruelty) who continuously put their lives in a higher risk to help those in their community.

The first individual responsibility that I was requested to take on by fellow BBP teammate, Jack McCarthy, is a clear example of this duality. The story of this family was hard to stomach. The mother was being raped by a Junta soldier when her youngest son, only 10 years old, attacked the solider behind with a knife to save his mother. Immediately after freeing his mother, the family (mother, father, two brothers, and a sister) had to flee in any chance of safety. They eventually found a place to hide away at the Mae La refugee camp: the mother arriving devastatingly traumatized, saying to Jack that all she can picture is the flow of red pouring over her from when the soldier was stabbed while on her. The son was frozen with overpowering anger. It was hard to comprehend that, among the scores of horror stories, this family is considered lucky by many; they were able to flee. It was further difficult to absorb that this instance is just a grain of sand in an ocean.

But then I was reminded of the other side to this story. The light: the women’s group, Karen Women’s Organization, cannot be overlooked. The community organization, themselves refugees who continue their personal struggle in life, provides schooling, safe housing, counseling, and other forms of care for numerous refugees who struggle in meeting mere subsistence. This family unexpectedly arrived at one of the KWO members’ doorsteps, where she took the entire family into her already-packed hut, cared for them, and contacted us to help provide counseling, housing assistance and education for the children. After counseling and follow-up efforts from Jack, I had the chance to meet with family to let them know that we are doing everything we can and that their situation will improve. Seeing the solace in their faces, in thought of the counseling benefits and hopeful prospects, is something I will not forget.

Organizations like KWO are the candles that keep this border town the lit platform for assistance and social change over so many years. For BBP to be having a positive impact in it all, through the generosity of our volunteers, partners, and supporters, cannot be described as anything else but an honor. Since my arrival, we have encountered a number of avenues to strengthen our partnerships on the border and, as a result, our ability to contribute. I am thrilled to share my experiences that I have during my stay here, but enough for now. More on these exciting program developments, my encounters, and moments with our partners to come!

Warmly,
Danielle

2006-06-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Aiming to help the Burmese refugees along the Thai-Burma border and acknowledging the severe trauma naturally resulting from thousands experiencing some of the grossest human rights violations, our Burma Border Projects’ team began developing partnerships to help further educate refugees on identifying and treating the psychosocial consequences of the human rights abuses since its founding in 1999. As a result of our donors’ generosity, BBP has been able to continue, and in some cases expand, the vital services we provide to Burmese refugees, vulnerable migrant workers, and those who are stranded inside the border-- the internally displaced. Burma Border Projects has done its utmost to expand its programs and services to keep up with the ever increasing demand for our participation. By nature, we have always found it extremely difficult to “say no” to urgent and utterly reasonable requests for help coming from these people we have grown to know and love over the years.

I am excited to keep you informed about the Burmese situation, our partners on the border, and our involvement by taking you all along with me as I live and work in Mae Sot, Thailand as a member of the BBP team, starting this July!

Until then, please view these short clips from our DVD to better understand the situation in Burma and our response.

The Political and Human Rights Context
Refugee Conditions
The Mae Tao Clinic
Dr. Cynthia Maung
BBP's Future Goals

Sincerely yours,
Danielle Fox
Program & Development Director