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Published: December 17th 2007
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Working with pictures to lessen the fear...
At Kit 14. He will be one of my nursery boys For 62 children between the ages of 2 and 5, I am hoping that things will get a little bit better soon.
The 22 “Kits” or permanent settlements in the Khok Kloi Rubber Plantation (Ngan Tawee) are home to about 300 Burmese. There is no fresh water, no sanitation and no permanent houses unless you consider the abandoned crumbling shell of buildings “permanent”.
In conjunction with a developing project to introduce water and sanitation to two of the 22 Kits, our goal is to develop two nursery care centers to house the children who are abandoned during the day while their parents work to bring home 35 baht a day in wages.
That’s one dollar Canadian.
The “we” refers to the organization called Child-trac. This NGO is founded and operated by a woman named Chantalle who worked previously with the group D-Track that assisted with coordinating information for NGO and interested parties after the 2004 Tsunami.
The plan is to develop and build two nursery care centers for the children in Ngan Tawee. This project is one that creates a big impact on the way of life, health and care in the Kits.
Life here
is a cycle: In the evening the adults (all of them but one teenager usually) prepare their tools for work. Between 7 and 9pm, every adult leaves the Kits to blend seamlessly into the massive rubber tree forest around them. They work until dawn when they return after 12 or 13 hours shifts. The same time the babies and young children left in the care of a single teenager wake.
Food is prepared, meals shared and then (logically) the adults should sleep. But with an entire village of children, sleep is nearly impossible. With catnaps here and there, babies to nurse, children to chase after, the health and mental state of the adults is obviously deteriorating.
The idea of a nursery offers the adults a respite between 9am and 3pm.
The Burmese feel it is best to hire a few of their own to watch the children and assist with meal preparation. The centre will also act as a nutrition centre, so at least the youngest children are getting more than one meal a day.
Food is hard to get here. The roads in the farms are muddy, rain slick, treacherous ruts cut into the sides of
River boys
The boys in their "bath". Also the only water source for the village...they drink, wash, cook and do laundry with the same water. banks and hills. They are literally a warren of criss-crossed paths and few vendors venture in. If no one comes in, the Burmese are out of luck. The Burmese can’t leave the farm, as illegals they risk being deported by the police that guard the gates. It’s an odd system.
Fish and wild roots and veggies are available, but when is the harvesting going to be done with a schedule like theirs.
The nursery is wanted very much by the Burmese and they are willing to work together to create them. The Kit manager has been approached and has “in principle” given his permission. He has yet to choose a Kit location though.
I mentioned that the ages are between 2 and 5. The children between 6 and 10 are able to attend a “class” taught by a volunteer Burmese grandmother. She teaches Burmese writing and reading. That’s about it. Again the school is more a place for the children to be than anything else.
Ages are important here…by the age of 10 the children are working. I did say that. Child labor laws don’t have any meaning for the Burmese and the Kit managers will
School room
Adjacent to this space, we will build the nursery...if the Kit manager selects this Kit. pay per weight of product, no one cares who does the work. The children, like their parents …are invisible remember?
But still, it’s all about perspective. The Ngan Tawee farm with its 30,000 acres of forest, poverty and death is a step above what life the inhabitants may have had. The Burmese who occupy the border areas in Ranong have a different set of circumstances.
Being border dwellers on a waterway, they are fishers. The fisherkids have lives that are more dangerous. The farms seem a safe haven compared to the lives of being exposed to rape, theft by peddlers of the child sex trade both in Thailand and Burma, theft, beatings. It goes on and on.
A group called
Grassroots has a nursery centre they operate to the North of my location. There are 56 children in an empty concrete room with a few mats, toys made of newspaper and water bottles, and two “teachers”. The memories of my visit include hollow stares, an eerie quiet for so many children and a room with puddles or urine and coughing children. More that half of the Burmese I have visited, some have malaria, some HIV and most
TB.
I asked Chantalle how big this problem was I was getting into, how large the issue. She didn’t answer me. She just looked at me and pursed her lips.
A few facts:
It is estimated that between 400 and 500 Burmese illegals cross the borders daily.
The current population is estimated to be 450,000 legal Burmese workers and more than 2,500,000 illegals (counting adults only). These figures vary tremendously as it is impossible to accurately estimate the population of invisible people.
The primary industries for illegals to work in are Rubber Plantations, Construction and Fishing.
The main employment locations are Chiang Rai, Mae Sot, Ranong and Sangklaburi
If you want to read more check out: http://searchportal.information.com/index.mas?epl=00830033VFAXVE0DWlgVVRBeVwMAFQRMD0MTWkdcDlNTHlxbXARcWgxZVAAOXRNCAxRZAQJKT1cJWkVUaAgFCAMPAQA
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