Why we set up Social Development Center

What is the Social Development Center?

Due to the civil war in Burma, over twenty two thousand Karenni people have fled to Thailand and they are now living in two refugee camps in Mae Hong Son province. The population is increasing day by day and there are almost twenty thousand refugees in Karenni camp number one. Even though there are many Karenni young people in the camps, there are very limited opportunities for education and training.

For these reasons, most of the Karenni people have not had an opportunity to learn about the environment, law or about human rights and how to protect their rights. The Karenni alumni from ERS strongly believe that their community needs an awareness of human rights, the environment and the rule of law in order to promote their living standards.

We are willing to dedicate our times and life for the people who needed radiant light to get peaceful and comfortable lives. As a result, we four Karenni ERSB alumni set up the Social Development Center on early 2002 in order to educate our people who are really suffering from human rights violation. The Social Development Center is focused on Human Rights, Environment and Law.

The Social Development center (SDC) has already implemented six times training courses and created some human rights and environments activists among 100 graduates. Graduates from the SDC have gone on to work in many local camp based organizations- while some have traveled at great risk, into Burma to pass on their new knowledge and skill to communities inside and/or to interview villagers in order to collect information on the human rights and environment situation in inside.

The vision of Social Development Center is to promote the lives of the people who have suffered human rights abuses, to teach non-violence skill to build up a new society, to develop the rule of law, to value human dignity and to protect the environment.

The School approach is practical and interactive. In the classroom, both Burmese language and Karenni dialects are used. The school plans to spend nine months in classroom and one month in fieldwork. The program includes lectures, group work, discussions, presentation, reports, activities, assignments etc. In order to promote student’s English language, the students spend one hour per day studying English and are also trained in computer skills one time per a week. The school courses cover….

The knowledge of Earth Rights, Human Rights, Environment, Women Rights, Child Rights, non-violence social change, Democracy and Government, courts and Judiciary, rule of law, constitution, International Institutions.

Statement of Purpose

During more than ten years period, over twenty-two thousands Karenni people have become relocated as refugee in Thailand. There are many diverse Karenni people in the refugee camps. Some are also still living in hide out area. Even though there are many thousands of Karenni young people in the refugee camps, they are very limited opportunity for education and training and they could not easy to apply further education and knowledge from training. For these reasons, most of the Karenni people do not know about human rights and how to protect their rights. They have only sacrificed their lives in violence way and abuse each other. On the other hand, there are also no human rights trainers or the people who can share these importance issues for people inside. We really would like to create mobile trainers for border area and inside. We also would like to have strongly unite and solidarity among Earthrights alumni in Karenni.

We strongly believe that if we do not have awareness of human rights and practicing rule of law in our community, we will not able to promote our living standard as well as we would not be able to change government system in Burma. So that we are willing to dedicate our times and lives for our people who have been suffering human rights violation in Burma.

Goal of Social Development Center:

To distribute knowledge and skills in Human Rights, Environment and Law, on the Thai-Burma Border

Objectives:

-To train 30 people from June 2011 to March 2012 who are really interested in activities of non-violence social change, environment and law, people who have few education opportunities

-To create Mobile trainers in order to spread knowledge of Human Rights, Environment and Law to beyond the local community.

-To cooperate on promoting of the protection and preservation of human rights and environment.

-To unite and solidarity among the ERS alumni to collaborate in the future work.

-To explore new technology and creative idea among community

-To compare and contrast local and international issues in Human Rights, Environment and Law

List of collaboration organizations

1. Earth Rights International
2. Earth Rights School
3. Curriculum project (OSI)
4. Karenni State Constitution Drafting Committee
5. Karenni Legal Education Committee
6. Other ERS alumni organizations

Social Development Center is going to conduct a ten months long training course project in 2011-2012. After finished training course, at least 17 people among the 30 graduates will become mobile trainers and they will spread their knowledge into borderline and inside Karenni state. SDC also collaborate with Karenni State Constitution Drafting Committee and Karenni Legal Education Committee in order to implement our vision and goal. In order to develop our school curriculum, we collaborated with our former teachers from ERS. In our training center, some of subjects are teaching in English and we taught One hour per a day for English class. Therefore, we contact with OSI curriculum project and get English curriculum. During our project, we also ask suggestions and advice from Earth Rights International since they have many experiences in training project running. In the pass years of courses, other alumni from different areas also came and taught in some subjects at our training center.

Past Accomplishments

Social development Center Training School has already produced 149 human rights and environment activists from 2003 to 2011. We have seen and experience that many Social Development Center Training School graduates have returned and involved in their community base organizations such as women organization, youths organization, administration, justice and other human rights and environment organizations. Some have taken up a more risky work of inside journey to gather information related to human rights and environment abuses Karenni people are facing and report to internal and international communities which very much in line with the goal of Social Development Program. As the result of the training school’s graduate campaign activities and short term training Karenni population in the camp and many villages inside Karenni State have started talking about human rights and fighting to have human rights. If we look at the major demonstration and demanding of human rights taken place in the camp last year we can observe that the project is in success. We can see the project is successful because many gradates have taken up the job in refugees justice office to carry out the implementation of fair and balance justice process.

Karenni population from inside Karenni state and in the camps have asked for the continuous opening of Social Development Center Training School every year and from their part they have contributing their support to the school through their physical and works support. For this year, the camp authority have support us in building water tank and pipe for the school and the reconstruction of school building. As a result of this kind of support we feel that we have received great support for the program from the community. Taking into consideration the change in the view and attitude of the people it is evident and we can strongly say that the program of Social Development Training School has become very vital program for the advancement of the Karenni community. The activists we have produced from the training school have been not only important for the Karenni community but we strongly believe that they will become leaders of change for future democratic country of Burma. Social Development Center Training School has become a big organization that grows the seeds of change for democratic government for Burma.

Need materials and human resources

For the 2011-2012 project of Social Development Center project, we need some materials resource and human resources to implement project. In our training center, we only have 5 computers and it is  not enough for 30 student’s computer class. For this reason, we are trying to find some second hand lap top computer donation by company and private donors.

Due to the lack of permanent financial source, we also need one foreigner volunteer to do fundraising for project and assist in writing proposal, reporting and editing.

For develop curriculum, having good communication with donors and other partnerships, teaching more computer and English class, we set up an office in Thai village. But we don’t have enough office supplies in our office.

Contact Address of Social Development

Name of Contact Person Aung Sun Myint Steven

Address PO.Box (20) Mae Hong Son

58,000, Thailand

Email ttzaung@yahoo.com

Phone No 0898526619 or 0864235771

(please notice new phone Number)