Set up in 2001, this School provides classes to Burmese students youth who have been chosen from a number of local NGOs and social networks for their work to highlight the human rights situation in Burma.
Burmese human rights activist, Charm Tong of SWAN, the Shan Women's Action Network, set up the School for Shan State Nationalities Youth in 2001. The school's students are Burmese youth who have been chosen from a number of local NGOs and social networks for their work to highlight the human rights situation in Burma.
There are currently 36 students in the school, chosen by the staff in a series of clandestine meetings either in Burma or the Thai-Burma border area. The students stay under cover and out of sight of the Thai authorities for nine months at the school while they complete their studies. When we visited, the students were preparing for their examinations in computers, maths, English, the environment, health, human rights and social studies.
Five volunteer teachers of varying nationalities take the students through their paces as they prepare them for their exams. Some students, said teacher Lyn Vesey, had been child soldiers in Burma, forced by the military to join up and removed from their families. "They have been so restricted in Burma," said Lyn, "that education is a liberating experience. We are training future community leaders here. Some will stay in Thailand and work on the border with their organisations or social networks, passing on their training. Some will go back to Burma."
Students in the school sleep six to a dorm, and face a lack of space as well as the ubiquitous flooding in the eight-month long rainy season in Thailand. But they are unanimous in their delight about being chosen to take part in the school, famous among the Shan people of Burma because of its activist leader and because of the quality of its training.
Teachers David Matheson and David Rempel, who teach math and science, said the students were delighted to be able to learn to think laterally. Any education they received in Burma meant learning by rote. Although some students graduated university in Burma, they said they never learned anything there.
Charm Tong said there was no recognition of Shan people as refugees in Thailand as they were considered economic migrants. "They have no formal support." The Thai government, which has a very good track record when dealing with refugees, has never signed the UN convention on refugees. "Shan people can be arrested and deported at any time. When refugee camps for Burmese were established in Thailand 16 years ago, the Karen people were considered to be fleeing the war in Burma. But the Shan were not."
Since the school was set up six years ago student numbers have increased from 26 to 36. This year there are 140 applications. "Some of the students' stories are far beyond what we can imagine," said Charm Tong sadly. "Some were child soldiers, others were abused and fled the military. Most will work within their communities and their community organisations on the Thai-Burma border and in Burma. This is one of the few programmes in leadership skills and the needs are increasing. We need to help more young people. They can then promote other people's rights."
Meeting the students
The young Burmese students from Shan State were full of questions about Ireland and about how the international community viewed their country. Living in exile, they were an exuberant bunch of young people determined to change the course of events through non-violent protest. They spoke of the dangers they faced in Burma, where the military oppression meant that they could not even sing a political song.
One young man said he had been jailed for three months for singing just such a song. He intended to go back into Burma after graduating from Charm Tong's school in October. "I fear for my security but I don't fear fighting for my rights," he said. "I will keep singing my political songs. If my people are not afraid, I'm not afraid."
Then two guitars were produced and the students sang for us. Songs of hope, songs of loss and exile, songs of protest and songs of anger, songs that gave a voice to the people of a nation that refuses to give them one.