Crossing the Border 01 Private Schools Struggling on the Survival Line, Thailand Myanmar Border Migrant Children's School Road

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The town of Meso, located on the Thai-Burmese border, used to be a safe haven for minority Karen Tribes on the Thai-Burmese border to escape from the civil war in Myanmar. In recent years, due to the establishment of special trade zones in Thailand and the opening up of Myanmar, Meso Town is located on the land transportation road from Bangkok to Yangon, becoming a new hot spot for many foreign investment and setting up factories, and attracting a large number of Burmese migrant workers to work illegally in Thailand.

According to estimates by local aid groups, nearly hundreds of thousands of Burmese migrant workers have gathered in the Meiso area and neighboring counties to live in makeshift homes. From time to time, temporary houses built by migrant workers with local materials can be seen scattered along the highway and in the fields, becoming a group of dark hukou without education, health care, or citizenship.

In order to solve the problem of schooling for the children of migrant workers in Myanmar, non-governmental migrant schools are run by non-governmental migrant workers with international assistance, including assistance from Taiwan. Green water School is one of the five migrant schools donated by the private sector in Taiwan, allowing children to receive education either cheaply or free of tuition. The way out of school is a happy way for children to go to school, a mobile road for Burmese migrant workers, and a microcosm of the fate of most Burmese migrant families.

Agricultural migrant workers can be seen everywhere on the country road to Green Water School. Agricultural migrant workers are seasonal and highly mobile, which also affects whether children can receive education (photography / Lin Jiyang) marginal ─ migrant children's education.

Green Water School is in Phop Phra County, south of Misso Town, about an hour's drive from the countryside, leaving Highway 1090 into a winding industrial road. In the fields on both sides of the hills, you can see groups after groups of people planting corn or cassava in the fields, ranging from 10 to 20 to as many as 40 to 50.

As large grain companies began to buy cassava, corn and other raw materials converted into bioenergy in Thailand, a large number of farmland near the town of Meso began to be reclaimed, and the rapidly expanding demand for labor attracted vulnerable farmers in Myanmar to cross the border with their families to work in Thailand.

As the industrial road moves farther and farther away from the road, there is an isolated bungalow hidden in an open forest on the hillside, where the "Green Water School" is located. Although it is a "school", it is basically an extremely simple classroom, and the mud on the slope is the playground. Classrooms are divided into high, middle and lower grades according to the division. Due to the lack of teachers, migrant schools often share teachers in different grades.

These children apply a circle of yellow and white Thanakha powder (neem powder) on their faces, and Burmese people are used to applying sunscreen and whitening on their faces. On these lovely and tender faces, I can't help remembering that the dark and blurred ranks of migrant workers seen in the road and field are the parents of this group of children.

Lai Shusheng says that education is not only hope, but also the beginning of the community's responsibility to help each other and protect children. _ Lin Jiyang filmed the unrecognized Green Water School

On the one hand, the Thai government tacitly allows a large number of cheap labor to enter, but is unwilling to provide corresponding basic education services. Private schools provide education for the children of migrant workers, but it does not admit to the Thai government that private "migrant schools" are listed as "learning centers" (Learning Center) as cram schools.

Legally, schools for migrant workers and children of migrant workers are grey areas that fend for themselves and have become another important issue of humanitarian relief at the border besides refugee camps. However, apart from the fact that the United Nations is too busy dealing with the issue of refugee camps, the issue of migrant workers has become beyond the reach of other international aid organizations.

Fortunately, there are some international organizations willing to assist these migrant schools, but remote schools like Green Water School, which are located in the countryside, serve the bottom of the migrant workers at the bottom and become the edge of the edge.

Partners of public welfare groups and Green Water School Children, the Thai government allows private schools to run in the name of learning centers, which are basically tolerant of the fragile universal values of migrant workers (Photography / Lin Jiyang), and migrant schools run by people struggling on the survival line.

The Green Water School is run under the humble school premises and conditions of a painter headmaster. Compared with the many international aid organizations in the town of Meiso, the Green Water School is located in a remote location, and the radiation scope of international aid resources is limited, so the situation of running a school is very difficult.

About five years ago, because the Green Water School was unable to raise funds, it was once faced with the dilemma of being closed. The parents of the school went to ask Weng Wen, the principal of the neighboring school "Falls School", who had a good relationship with the former principal of the school. The Falls School is about half an hour's drive from the Green Water School. Because of its convenient transportation and much larger scale, the situation of the school is also stretched. Principal Weng Wen turned to Lai Shu-sheng (Sam), a worker from Taiwan's "Global Local Action Public Welfare Association" (Glocal Action), and received timely support. Only after receiving timely support, the Green Water School was temporarily exempted from closure.

"the nickname at the border is also 'Sam Dong', but it's not easy." Lai Shusheng said with a wry smile. It means that when no one can find resources, they will pin their last hope on him, a Taiwanese, and the responsibility is extremely heavy.

Lai Shu-sheng (left), who has been drifting at the border for 15 years, can't let go of his border partners. Return to Taiwan to establish GlocalAction to link up the societies of Thailand, Burma and Taiwan. Through public welfare tour groups to assist local migrant schools to run schools. _ Lin Jiyang's photography, from lighting to clean water, is a luxury here.

Green Water School is indeed a school, but because the school building is so simple, it is almost unbearable to see that it is a little surprised at the first time when it enters the classroom. Donations from Taiwan organizations give priority to installing solar panels to provide lighting and electricity, and then water purifiers to provide clean water for teachers and students.

On the afternoon of the visit, the school has planned the interactive class time, and the peer partner Daisy's mother skillfully blew up the prepared balloons, and the time for Taiwanese public welfare groups to play with junior students. The serious classroom becomes colorful because of the colorful balloons.

Education, dim lighting, and clean water, which are the basic services taken for granted in Taiwan, can only be realized by goodwill donated thousands of kilometers away.

Visitors from Taiwan bring colorful balloons, and the campus with the sound of books turns into colorful happy balloon parties (photography / Lin Jiyang). Once students drop out, it's hard to come back!

Lai Shusheng, who has assisted overseas on the Thai-Burmese border for more than 15 years, said that schools in the town with convenient transportation are relatively easy to raise money, but the "Green Water School" is the border of the border. Even if the aid resources from Taiwan are limited every year, we still have to squeeze out resources to maintain the Green Water School.

"otherwise, as soon as the students leave school, it will be very difficult to get them back." Lai Shusheng explained that if children do not go to school, they either bring younger children at home or follow their parents to work as child labourers. At the border, the wages of child labor are not lower than those of adults, and sometimes even higher. Because for managers, child labor is more obedient and easier to manage.

"sometimes the income of one more person has a great incentive for Burmese migrant workers to improve their economic conditions, so it is often not easy at first for parents to change their minds and support letting their children go to school," Lai explains. Looking at the simple migrant workers' villages built with bamboo or iron by the side of the road, many children are still unable to go to school, and it is already lucky to be able to come to Lvshui.

On the way to the end of Green Water School, you can see the immature face working with her parents (Photography / Lin Jiyang) Lai Shusheng: the responsibility of taking care of the children lies not only in the family, but also in the whole community.

Because migrant workers have no citizenship, not only have no right to education, no medical security, sometimes even the law can not protect migrant workers, suffered violations can only have no way to seek help. Lai Shu-sheng painfully spoke of a period of dark psychological trauma of international donors when he once saw the victims of violence come to their homes for help, but international aid organizations had no choice but to respond.

From his experience in international aid, Lai Shusheng knows that only children can become "societies".