Burma Border Projects (BBP) is dedicated to serving the needs of the Burmese refugees (mainly ethnic Karen and Shan) who  struggle for survival along the border between Burma and Thailand. One of our principal focuses is in the previously neglected area of mental health training and treatment. Our programs address the psychosocial consequences of the trauma that is experienced by Burmese refugees, and associated with human rights abuses and dislocation. This is accomplished by working collaboratively and in culturally relevant ways with local organizations that support and provide assistance to Burmese refugees, migrants and internally displaced people.  Another  priority of ours is to directly address some of the community’s   most challenging problems by funding projects such as migrant schools, orphanages, safe houses, medical clinics serving to the internally displaced, and by providing general support for our partnering community based organizations.

EDUCATION & TRAINING:  Facilitate culturally sensitive trainings for local trainers, medics, teachers, and community and religious leaders on providing counseling services and managing health, empowerment, education, and other community-based issues in crisis situations.

 

GENDER ISSUES:  Identify and address issues that specifically affect women.  Issues such as rape, domestic violence and child abandonment are addressed in collaboration with local women’s organizations.

 

MENTAL HEALTH CLINICAL SERVICES & CAPACITY BUILDING: Provide therapy and counseling services to refugees with traumatic symptoms.  This includes staff of local organizations who themselves are affected by both personal trauma and the experiences of others.  Work with local organizations and institutions to develop and implement mental health processes and procedures, establish consultative programs, identify and address additional needs.

 

DEVELOPMENT MATERIALS: Create and circulate cross-cultural tool kits and materials for use by medics and caregivers assisting depressed, traumatized, and suicidal patients.  A formal curriculum is being developed in collaboration with local groups to ensure that knowledge, methodologies, and processes are easily shared and replicated.

 

COMMUNITY INVOLVMENT:  In addition to and as a consequence of our initial efforts specifically in mental health training, we have come face to face with the desperate psychosocial circumstances of those whom we train. We have responded by expanding our involvement within the community through building and supporting orphanages, funding teachers in schools for children of migrant workers, supporting Shan medics operating in the always-dangerous Golden Triangle area, establishing an "Alternatives to Abandonment" program which makes it possible for young Burmese mothers working in Thai sweat shops to keep and not simply abandon their newborn babies, and in other significant ways as well such as bringing a team of Massachusetts dentists to the border on a regular basis. Our thinking has evolved to linking the hope provided by our trainings with the empowerment that is engendered by funding the creative responses of those with whom we partner and train.