What We Do :: Programs and Projects | Partnerships
Partnerships
BBP has had the good fortune to work with some of the most committed, resourceful and able groups and individuals to be found anywhere and who presently are toiling for the sake of others along the Thai Burma border. Their collaboration has been the lynchpin that has made it possible for us to accomplish all that we have along the border.
BBP's Partner Organizations
The Mae Tao Clinic - Located in the border town of Mae Sot, Thailand, the Mae Tao Clinic was founded in 1988 by Dr. Cynthia Maung, and has been an important primary health care treatment and training center for all displaced Burmese and the major sponsor and center for BBP's mental health trainings. The clinic trains medics from refugee populations all along the Burmese border and provides extended medical services to the migrant worker community. In addition, the clinic provides training to the widely acclaimed "backpack doctors" who treat, at great risk to themselves, the internally displaced persons stranded inside the jungles of eastern Burma. The clinic is staffed primarily by indigenous volunteers and, occasionally, Western trained physicians who are able to spend a few weeks or months in residence. Dr. Cynthia's clinic provides many levels of medical services including Out Patient and In Patient departments, education for scores of medics each year, a Reproductive Health Care and Family Planning Clinic, pre- and postnatal care and education programs aimed at disease prevention, particularly for HIV/AIDS. Dr. Cynthia's needs are many: medicines, medical supplies and instruments, and food to feed the hundreds of patients, including severely malnourished children, who visit her clinic each week. And she simply needs more discretionary operating funds to use in unexpected emergencies as when recently she was asked to temporarily feed hundreds of displaced refugees from Mae La Po Hta Refugee Camp which had been attacked and burned to the ground by Burmese Army troops.
Social Action for Women (SAW) - On June 25, 2000, a group of dedicated women newly arrived from Burma formed an independent organization called Social Action for Women (SAW). The organization's primary purpose is to assist displaced women from Burma who are in crisis situations after having fled from their country out of fear for their lives. Initially, SAW provided shelter, health education, counseling, and vocational training for unskilled women. Later, SAW expanded its focus population to include caring for and educating orphaned children and children of migrant workers. SAW also works with 6,600 migrant workers in five factories and six communities in the Mae Sot area by introducing them to SAW's Health Education Program.
The Karen Women's Organization (KWO) - Among its many projects, KWO currently operates six safe houses located in two of the largest refugee camps. They also plan to establish a third safe house in No Po refugee camp. Current safe houses assist female victims of domestic violence, women suffering from mental illness, and female survivors of trafficking, some of whom plan to return to Burma. In addition to shelter, food, counseling and basic non-food items, the safe houses provide weaving, sewing, and vocational training programs. KWO is also beginning a program to address the problem of gender-based violence in the refugee camps through public education and awareness campaigns and by having field workers travel along the border to reach non-camp-based female rape survivors. The main goal of this program is to teach young women basic health education, awareness of gender based violence, and how best to provide for their own safety and protection.
Muslim Women's Organization of Burma - This community group consists of talented women who are eager to learn how to establish themselves as a viable social services organization. Currently they are modeling themselves on the Karen Women's Organization which runs programs in all the camps along the border with a central office in Mae Sot offering leadership and administrative support. One of the challenges faced by the MWOB is that the safe houses and orphanages run by the Karen do not offer their Muslim residents the opportunity to follow their own dietary laws and to observe daily prayers.
Sai Sam & the Backpack Doctors - Sai Sam is a veteran medic who was trained at the Mae Tao Clinic. He is from Shan State and has established three clinics in northern Thailand in the infamous Golden Triangle region. The clinics are meters away from the Burma border where the Burmese army has been waging a vicious campaign to break the will of the Shan people. Sai Sam's patients are Internally Displaced People (IDP's) who cross the border from Burma to receive health care that is non-existent on the Burma side of the border. As well as providing medical services at the clinic, Sai Sam has been conducting a needs assessment of the Shan who are living across the border in small groups, hiding from the Burmese army. The results of that assessment will determine what kind of outreach he will generate for this population. BBP has been providing $480.00 per month to Sai Sam so that he can take the sickest of his patients to Thai hospitals if their medical needs are beyond the capabilities of his staff and equipment. When we visited him in March of 2004 he said in a somewhat joking manner, "If Michael stops sending me that money, I'll jump off a bridge." Clearly, he was speaking for effect, but it demonstrates how vital and essential the support he receives from BBP is-even this comparatively modest amount.
Catholic Overseas Emergency Refugee Relief (COERR) - COERR is a local Thai-based NGO dedicated to helping the Burmese refugees who reside in the 10 camps along the Thai-Burma border. One of COERR's thriving programs is the refugee camp social worker network, which consists of approximately 100 social workers who serve as counselors and provide general support to the roughly 160,000 refugees residing in the camps. BBP works in partnership with COERR to provide cultural relative training in trauma therapy treatment and crisis counseling to the 100-person network's 20 supervisors. This project will culminate with these supervisors possessing the capacity to provide treatment for advanced trauma and for some for the most challenging psycho-social problems. It is expected that these trained supervisors will be independently capable of training their colleagues in similar counseling techniques, thereby creating a sustainable wealth of effective counseling skills and expertise.
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