October 31, 2007Given the current events in Burma, we were fortunate to have AJWS make a quick change in schedule that allowed us to visit the town of Mae Sot and several AJWS grantees to hear firsthand the situation inside of
Burma and along the border areas. Mae Sot is about 4 hours southwest of Chiang Mai on the Thai Burma border and has become a hub for support organizations and humanitarian activities serving Burmese refugees. These activities cover 2 distinct groups, internally displaced persons (inside of
Burma) (IDP’S) and refugees (Burmese in countries outside of
Burma). Many of these people are tribal and represent the Karen, Shan, Akka, and Mon ethnic peoples. There are several long established refugee camps located in the vicinity and by and large these serve as relative safe havens for the refugees. Services being provided include human rights training, education, humanitarian assistance, and healthcare outreach and services. The first AJWS grantee visited here was EARTHRIGHTS INTERNATIONAL (ERI). Earthrights mission is to address environmental exploitation and human rights abuses in
Burma. ERI provides 1.) Leadership training and education that develop human rights and environmental activists who can train their communities to secure and defend earth rights. (Earth rights are defined as the intersection of human rights and the environment) 2.) Legal action against earth rights abuses which seek to apply domestic and international law to hold corporations and others accountable for their actions and 3.) Advocacy campaigns that bring together human rights and environmental activists, affected communities and concerned individuals to raise public awareness about the issues.
EARTHRIGHTS staff met us at the nonprofit heath clinic started and run by Dr. Cynthia Maung, “Dr. Cynthia” to the local community. Dr. Cynthia is a Burmese who came to the Thai side of the border in the late 1980’s and has been here ever since. A tireless humanitarian, Dr. Cynthia recognized the need to serve an expanding population of IDP’S, refugees, and migrants from her home country. For most people in these groups, Dr. Cynthia’s clinic is the only source of healthcare and she set up her clinic to treat sick Burmese who could not afford healthcare services in
Burma as well as the continuously expanding refugee and migrant populations. This clinic served about 2000 people in 1989 when it first opened and currently is the primary means of healthcare for more than 100,000 Burmese last year.
The types of problems treated here are what we in the developed world hardly consider anymore. Malnourishment is a huge problem…you don’t see obesity here, only people who don’t know where or when their next meal will come from.
Burma’s healthcare “system” was ranked one of the worlds least responsive and it remains a place where basic vitamin deficiencies kill people. The clinic provides maternity, pediatric, surgical, prosthetic, lab and pharmacy services. Beriberi, caused by a severe lack of vitamin B1 is still found here and there are many babies dying from infantile beriberi. B1 is found in foods such as fish, eggs, brown rice, pork and peanuts…many people here only have access to white rice… People here are afflicted with and die from ailments that we no longer are concerned with or even think about.
The clinic is primitive by our western standards and by Thai standards as well but for the majority of Burmese here, this is their only source of healthcare. If not for the selfless efforts of Dr. Cynthia and her dedicated staff and volunteers these Burmese would have no access to medical treatment. In addition to being a clinic, it was apparent that the clinic compound serves as a community for these displaced Burmese. This “community” serves a wonderful need and is a fine example to our communities and how we as a community can always do more. These people here with absolutely nothing work so hard and so selflessly…
My father, a survivor of the holocaust, was naturalized in 1945 and what this has meant for him and my whole family is recognized and appreciated. Dad said from as early as I can remember, “Those born in America don’t appreciate
America” and I must admit, there is truth in these words. We are indeed fortunate to live in
America.
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence. These three aspects are listed among the “unalienable rights” of man.These rights are ones we often taken for granted and we must keep in mind that our roles could easily be reversed with the oppressed and disenfranchised around the world. A role of the dice and we are here and they are there. Happiness and all that it entails we expect as a basic right by our western values and is brought down to earth quickly when happiness in the context of these Burmese and 40-50% of humanity is knowing that you have the next meal for yourself and your family. I try to keep this in mind when I bitch and complain about petty things.We later met with the HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION INSTITUTE OF BURMA (HREIB), an NGO, non-profit Burmese institute for human rights education in
Burma. HREIB was the first organization along the border area with this focus. Once again, we experienced the commitment, enthusiasm, empowerment, and tireless efforts of this AJWS partner. The continuing sense of how slowly change occurs and how committed these people are in light of this is truly impressive.
HREIB provides human rights education, grassroots level gender equitable knowledge and skills based training, capacity building training of trainers programs, and produces impressive training materials, guides and publication.HREIB also produces human rights documentation via video that depicts the lives of displaced persons in
Burma. We viewed a very moving video of last’s months “Saffron Revolution” which showed footage of the brutality that was never seen on any major news network. At risk for their lives, these brave educators sneak back into
Burma where they can carry on their mission of training others about their human rights and also document ongoing events.We ended this amazing day with a short visit to the BORDERLINE WOMEN’S COLLECTIVE, another AJWS grantee that provides shared marketing space for handmade items created by women from the border area. This collective and fair trade shop provides internship opportunities and workshops in product design, price setting, marketing, and other small business skills for refugee and ethnic minority women’s groups. There was much in the way of local and ethnic handicraft and we were all very happy to provide additional support to this group through the groups multiple purchases of their beautiful products. After this visit, we went to the actual border of Thailand and Burma. This is truly a “bridge over troubled water”. We could not cross but this is a “fluid” border where people are passing back and forth, whether it be via the bridge or by swimming or floating across the river. There was a noticable number of Thai military here and we were cautioned to not take pictures at the risk of having our cameras confiscated. 
This entry was posted
on Saturday, November 17th, 2007 at 15:46 and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.