By Pam Rogers | Capacity Advisor/Addiction Trainer
Times in the Burmese Refugee Camps are getting more difficult everyday as International funding to the border camps decreases. Health and Education quaility and opportunities are shrinking and services to the refugees are being consolidated by International NGOs.
Talk of repatriation to Burma by the Thai Government and the UN make people nervous, because clearly not much has changed in Burma. As the world has recently seen, the Military is still brutal and engages in ethnic cleansing as a modus operandi. What is happening to the Rohgingya in Rakine State has already happened decades before in Karen, Karenni and Mon States and also is currently happening to the people of Kachin State.
Can the refugees go back home? Not right now. Not safely.
The young people in the camps remain stuck without opportunity for higher education or employment. Many of these kids were born in the camps. Home to them is a refugee camp. How would they fair in Burma, the land of their parents and grandparents. A land they have never seen.
DARE Network remains on the ground working with these young people, many of whom turn to drugs and alcohol out of feelings of hopelessness and boredom. There is a big uptick in suicides among the youth. Our jobs are cut out for us right now, in the midst of uncertainty and anxiety among the refugees.
Recently, we joined up with the Canadian NGO, Right to Play to offer activities to the youth in the camp. We had special days to play Ultimate Frisbee, have fun competitions, debates, and art contests. We had a day of music in the camps. These events were well attended and enjoyed by many of the youth in the camps.
Everytime we do these actions is one more time to share addiction knowledge to young people. Each time we may prevent some youth from starting to use drugs and help them feel better about themselves, as human beings.
We want to thank you all for your donations to this project. We currently are engaged in a new Year End Campaign on GlobalGiving for this extra special time in the camps. Please read about our new project at
https://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/pe/project-edit/edit-page-1.html?project.projId=30513
and learn more about the current situation in the refugee camps on the Thailand/Myanmar border.
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