Visiting Burmese Refugees in Thailand

Audubon Dougherty, UUSC's communications assistant, recently returned from visiting tsunami-affected communities in Indonesia and Thailand.

In the last few days of our trip, Martha and I flew to Phang Nga, Thailand, a tsunami-affected area south of Phuket, to visit Grassroots Human Rights Education and Development (HRE), a Burmese nongovernmental organization (NGO) that UUSC has been supporting since 1999.

Arriving at the airport, we were greeted by two young girls. I thought they were interns, but it turned out they were both experienced coordinators (one for children's education, one for women's health) who fled Burma as students and have been working with HRE for several years now. "My staff is young," said Htoo Chit, the founder of HRE, "because it's very important to train the next generation of Burmese activists."

What we soon came to realize was that nearly all his staff are undocumented, or stateless, refugees. They need work permits in order to stay in Thailand, which are very costly. Fortunately, UUSC will be providing funds to secure permits for HRE staff members and affiliate teachers. Grants will also support legal aid for migrant workers and training for teachers and staff.

Htoo Chit is a former student activist turned resistance leader turned founder of this successful -- yet undocumented -- Burmese-run human rights NGO. The respect he shows for his colleagues and fellow Burmese refugees is huge, and creates a tangible feeling of fairness and equality in his office and on his work sites. It took only a few minutes for Martha and me to be in awe of this man, as well as the entire staff of HRE.

Burmese migrants specifically were made most vulnerable of all tsunami survivors, receiving almost no relief because of their status as undocumented and stateless people. HRE provides legal aid and tenement housing for Burmese migrant workers on rubber plantations and construction sites, health training, nurseries for infants and toddlers, and new "learning centers" built after the tsunami for elementary school-aged children of migrant workers. They also are fundamental in organizing the community of Burmese migrants around rights issues.


Schools are set up strategically around work sites so parents can move to different ones when their contracted jobs are over. Some teachers stay overnight at the school to take care of children who board there while their parents work. Schools are low-profile buildings so Thai officials will be less likely to close them down. Over the course of a whirlwind two days, Htoo Chit took us around to different learning centers, nursuries, and temporary housing barracks his organization has created.

I took way too many pictures. Perhaps through photos you can catch a glimpse of the compassion and commitment of the teachers and the appreciation and innocence of the children.