Humanitarian work for Burma in Mae Sot

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/travelfellowship/stephanie/?p=57

Posted by stephanie on Nov 4th, 2008 2008
Nov 4
My final day in Mae Sot I was able to visit a variety of organizations based on humanitarian aid to those in Burma and those living in refugee camps in Thailand. One of the organizations that I thought was so incredible was called Border Green Energy Team (www.bget.org). BGET uses sustainable technology to bring about change in the ethnic minority areas inside and outside of Burma. Some of the projects that BGET works on are bringing electricity to clinics in Burma. One of the problems with providing health care to those living as displaced populations in Burma is being able to transport medicines and vaccines that need to be refrigerated. BGET creates solar energy systems that allow for refrigeration in areas without electricity. They go in and install these systems, and then give the people who will be living and working there the knowledge of how to maintain and operate the systems so that they can continue using them (the systems are also easily dismantled if the army comes). Another project of BGET is to provide solar cookers to the displaced populations in Burma. I had never thought about it before, but if these groups use fire to cook their foods, it creates smoke, which jeopardizes their hiding positions. But using solar cookers, which are light and easy to transport, there is no smoke. How cool! BGET also has projects utilizing hydropower and biogas systems in these areas for projects such as providing electricity to schools in the areas. I was blown away by the work and ingenuity of this group, and encourage you to visit their website for more information about it!



Another place we visited was the Mae Tao clinic (www.maetaoclinic.org), which is internationally known and renowned clinic, and was even visited by Laura Bush in August. This clinic, started by Dr. Cynthia Maung, provides free health care for refugees, migrants, and other people who cross the border from Burma to Thailand. The clinic, which has been in operation since 1989, is now a large complex providing all sorts of medical treatments to the Burmese populations. I had a chance to meet Dr. Cynthia while I was there, and was struck by her humbleness despite the incredible accomplishments she has had in her life. She has even been dubbed the “Mother Teresa of Burma.” Her eyes, though, were twinged with a sadness of a woman who has witness more suffering than any one person should, but this is because she invites it to her so that she may heal it. The story of Dr. Cynthia and the Mae Tao clinic is fascinating, and I encourage you to read more about it at (www.maetaoclinic.org/aboutus.html). Meeting people like Dr. Cynthia gives me complete confidence that the situation in Burma will eventually improve and that the military junta will be replaced, and the compassion of the people of Burma will replace the brutality of the military junta. For as Aung San Suu Kyi has said, “There will be change because all the military have are guns.”

The final organization we visited was the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (www.aappb.org). This group works to monitor the situation of political prisoners in Burma (there are currently 2,120 according to their website), provide food and medicine to prisoners, publicize their reports to international bodies, and much more to improve the condition of the prisoners in their country whose only crime was expressing their belief in a different way for Burma to be governed. We had the opportunity to ask questions to three former political prisoners who now work for this organization in order to help their colleagues. The imprisonment time for those we talked to ranged from 5 to 14 years. Some of them spent a third of their lives in prison for simply voicing an opinion different from the military junta. In a video that the organization showed us, Aung San Suu Kyi, a political prisoner herself, said that if there are political prisoners in a country, then there can be no democracy. So the release of the political prisoners in Burma is vitally important if Burma is to ever become a democratic country. In a quote from the movie by Aung San Suu Kyi, she said that “If you cannot say what you wish, then you are not free as an individual or society.” Even for those in Burma who are not in jail, they are in many ways prisoners in their own countries, stripped away of their freedoms and rights.