Steve and I arrived in Mae Hong Son after a seven-hour drive over beautiful mountain roads, with little traffic and great views.
In the evening we met Mitos Urgel from WEAVE and Mitos introduced us to Maysie Win, who works with the Karenni Further Studies Programme. Maysie is working mostly in Karenni camp 2 which is about 3 hours' drive from Mae Hong Son. Maysie is an alumni of the Earthrights International school who went on to do a degree in India before returning to work with the Karenni in camp 2. The Further Studies programme is a community led project for post-high school students, allowing them to further their education as well as prepare to become community workers and leaders in their communities. He showed us a well-prepared presentation on his work and discussed the problems of working in the camp where movement outside the camp is severely restricted.
It is nearly three years since I last saw Mitos so it was great to catch up on the news from WEAVE, a partner of RIJ since the late 1990s.
30 November 2009
With Mitos and her colleague, Dina, we set off for Karenni camp 1, just under an hour from Mae Hong Son. We had to stop by the city administration office first to collect our camp passes. The camp is under the control of Mae Hong Son provincial administration.
As we neared the camp, the tarred road ran out and the car bounced over the deeply rutted road. The authorities do not want to spend money on road upkeep for what is still termed a temporary settlement even after 20 years.
Once we entered the camp, the roads were even worse and very narrow. There are few vehicles in the camp, but trucks do have to bring in supplies. The houses are all made by the residents. There are bamboo fences and the buildings are all constructed out of local building materials. They told us that no concrete is allowed so all the floors are packed earth. The houses have a very temporary feel to them and we learnt that they all have to be redone every year.
At the camp, we went straight to the Karenni Women's Organisation study centre where they run the Women's Study Programme - see Women's Capacity Development Programme under Projects in 2008 under 'Projects' on the RIJ website. We met with the teachers and the students. The students all introduced themselves in English which they were very shy about. We met twelve students who range in age from 14 to 22 years old. We were surprised to learn that the majority of them are married. The centre has to provide a nursery for those who have young children. This can create problems with concentration when the mothers hear their children crying!
I noted that the students are younger than previous years and learnt that this is due to the resettlement programme whereby refugees are given the opportunity to resettle to countries like Norway, the US and Australia. The WSP students have completed their classroom work (covering subjects relating to community studies, peace and human rights) and will now work in the community encouraging unemployed women to consider how to improve their situation and know their rights. They told us (through an interpreter) how difficult it is to work in the community because many people do not want to open their doors to visitors. We discussed the reasons for this and how they think they can handle it. It is impressive that the Women's group has built up a strong network of people that can help each other. The meeting closed with the students making speeches on how much they gained from the course in terms of confidence and learning how they can help each other. Most of them spoke in Kayan but one tried to do some of her speech in English.
We then moved on to visit Aung San Myint at the Social Development Centre (SDC) - see 'Social Development Centre Training Support in 2008 under 'Projects' on the website. I was impressed in my previous visit at the work of SDC in terms of human rights and promoting a peaceful approach to conflict resolution. Since SDC first began over 7 years ago, 100 people have graduated and gone to work in a variety of organisations. The students live at the centre so that they are not distracted from their studies by family issues. The Centre has a nice setting on a hill with the dormitories above the teaching centre and a cane-ball court. Aung San Myint told us how the centre now has two sites - one being outside the camp where they can work on computers better. The students alternate sites.
They told us one of the students had burnt the roof of one dormitory the previous week through lack of attention to a candle. Fortunately no-one was hurt.
One of the students told me that the library at SDC is not well stocked with books and thus reading for research and study is limited. Aung San Myint showed me the library which has some older copies of periodicals and books. We will certainly look for some newer publications to send to the centre.
Aung San Myint and his team are all alumni from Earthrights International School. So we are meeting a lot of alumni throughout this visit! It shows the ripple effect of good funding. Both the programmes we visited today are excellent examples of this and show how small funding from groups like RIJ can go on to benefit many people in communities both inside Burma and in refugee communities.
Steve felt that two words summed up what he has seen in the last three days: 'dignity' and 'normalcy'. Everyone is working hard to build self-respect and reproduce a society based on their culture. They face big challenges but they continue to do their best and work together.
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