AMT: Volunteer at Mae La refugee camp in 2007/8 Thai-Burma Border

Mr.Thar Gyi and Myself

Mae La refugee camp (Section-C)

I was working here for one year, for Young Refugee People and their education, so we should know what Mae Law is! 

Mae La, Beh klaw (alternatively spelled Maela),(S'gaw Karen: မဲၣ်လၤဒဲကဂီၤ, ဘဲကျီး) is a refugee camp in Thailand. It was established in 1984 in Tha Song Yang District, Tak Province in the Dawna Range area and currently houses 50,000 refugees, with more arriving each week from Burma, also known as Myanmar. Mae La is the largest refugee camp for Burmese in Thailand. Over 90% are ethnic Karen. The camps are overseen and run by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), a union of 11 international non-governmental organizations that provide food, shelter and non food items to the Burmese refugees and displaced people.

The first refugees arrived in 1984, mostly of the Karen or Karenni ethnicities, fleeing armed conflict and ethnic persecution by the Burmese government. Thousands of villages, especially in the Karen and Karenni States, were burned to the ground, including houses, religious buildings, schools, belongings, and sometimes even domestic animals.^[4] Many refugees cited similar stories: Direct military attacks by the Myanmar army, forced labor, destruction of homes and food crops, and enslavement. The camp was originally established following the fall of the Karen National Union (KNU) base at the Thai village of Mae La on the border, and had a population of 1,100 people.

Mae La is considered as an educational centre for refugees, so the current population includes several thousand students who come to study in the camp (some from other camps but mostly from Burma). They are registered only as temporary inhabitants. In total, as of July 2014 there were 2,763 students boarding in the camps. However, there are only a handful of schools on the Thailand-Burma border where students can apply once they finish a post-ten level school, leaving thousands of aspiring university students unable to complete further education.

Thai authorities allowed refugees to register with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) periodically during 2004 and 2005, and since 2005, all registered refugees have been eligible for resettlement to third countries. In June 2014, 96,206 had been resettled, with the vast majority (75%) of them headed to the US, followed by Australia, Canada, Finland, and Norway. Resettlement numbers have declined each year since 2008, mainly because the majority of those who were able to register in 2004 and 2005 have already left. The group settlement program to the US has now closed, but a significant number remain in the pipeline and are expected to depart in 2015.

Getting water here in Summer, all take bath here