Meeting the Needs of Myanmar's Displaced Families

In Autumn 2024, Peace Winds launched a fundraiser to help children who had fled the civil war in Burma and are studying and living at a community school in Thailand, the Kwe Ka Buang Learning Center.  Thanks to donors like you, we recently presented the principal and teaching staff with nearly $2,000 in donations. The school can only afford two meals a day for the students, so funds will be used to provide additional meals, as well as to cover electricity and water bills. 

The majority of children who live and study at Thai community schools like Kwe Ka Buang were sent across the border unaccompanied to keep them safe from conscription and escalating violence as a result of the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. Though the students are safer here than back home, life at these schools is difficult. Teachers and staff do their best to meet students’ basic needs, but classrooms and dormitories are far over capacity, and the living conditions are rudimentary.

The teachers at Kwe Ka Buang fled from Burma themselves and come from similar backgrounds as their students. “I was a medical student in Yangon, but I had to leave school for safety,” one teacher told Peace Winds. “My father is still in Yangon. Since I do not have a passport or documentation, I cannot continue to attend medical school outside of Burma. As a teacher here, I use my knowledge from medical school to help students who have so much trauma from the war they escaped in Burma. Spending time with students makes me happy.”

Another taught for 15 years in Mon State before coming to Kwe Ka Buang. “I have been teaching at this school for the past three years,” he said, “and I am very happy that I can continue to provide education to Burma students here.”

Your support could not have come at a more critical time; many Thai organizations that work to meet the needs of Burmese migrant students are funded by USAID. Consequently, the U.S. suspension and termination of foreign assistance programs like these has come as a big blow, creating confusion and hardship for local nonprofits, schools, and the students they support.

Despite the hardships they face, students at the school dream of the same types of things as teenagers elsewhere around the world. Seventeen-year-old Yandanar is from Kawkareik and has been a student at Kwe Ka Buang for two years. “I enjoy playing football and exercising with my friends at this school,” he said. “Some day, I would love to travel around the world.”

Sixteen-year-old Eh Sue has been a student at the school for the past year after fleeing her home in Hpa-an, Karen State. “I love learning English,” she says, “and someday, I want to become an English teacher!”

In addition to supporting students, Peace Winds is helping Burmese migrant mothers in rural areas of Thailand access childcare, education, and healthcare for themselves and their children. We look forward to continuing to bring updates from Thailand as we are able, and we are so grateful to you for making our work possible.