Karen children sing

Karen children sing in honor of rivers: www.internationalrivers.org

MAE TAO CLINIC

KAREN STATE SCHOOL & MUSIC

HILFSWERK AUSTRIA KAREN KIDS

BURMESE MIGRANT EDUCATION COMITEE

www.helpwithoutfrontiers.org

Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in Indochina (mainland Southeast Asia). The country is bordered by China on the north-east, Laos on the east, Thailand on the south-east, Bangladesh on the west, India on the north-west and the Bay of Bengal to the south-west with the Andaman Sea defining its southern periphery. One-third of Burma’s total perimeter, 1,930 kilometres (1,199 mi), forms an uninterrupted coastline. Read More: > HERE <

PRISONED NOBEL LAUREATES: Aung San Suu Kyi , born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese opposition politician and a former General Secretary of the National League for Democracy. She has remained under house arrest in Myanmar for almost 14 out of the past 20 years. Aung San Suu Kyi was the recipient of the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the Government of India. Read More: > Here <

Liu Xiaobo (pronunciation: [ljǒʊ̯ ɕjɑ̀ʊ̯pɔ́]; born 28 December 1955) is a Chinese literary critic, professor, and human rights activist who called for democratic reforms and the end of one-party rule in China. He is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in China. During his 4th prison term, he was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, for „his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. Read More: > HERE <

The Karen Teacher Working Group (KTWG) is a local Karen organization attempting to promote education throughout Karen State, Burma despite almost 60 years of Burma Army oppression.

You can find regularly updated news about Karen communities in refugee camps in Thailand and in internally displaced communities throughout Karen State, Burma – as well as news about schools in those communities. You can also find reports, newsletters, Karen fonts, and other resources on our site. Donations for Karen State schools may also be made online or by contacting us. For over half a century, civil war in Burma has uprooted many Ethnic, Indigenous communities. The Burmese military regime (SPDC) have focused their military offensives upon Ethnic groups living in the border areas of Burma . Numerous Ethnic Peoples have fled Burma to escape forced labour, re-location, rape, murder, theft and many other human rights abuses.

The Karen are one of the Ethnic groups from Burma . There are over 120,000 Karen living in refugee camps in Thailand . The majority of Karen live in Karen State, Burma where they continue to suffer greatly at the hands of the Burmese military regime (SPDC). There are over 100,000 internally displaced Karen persons living in Karen State, Burma.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI – Nobel Peace Prize Winner on Non Violence

Nobel Peace prize winners (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Mairead Corrigan, Rigoberta Menchú, Prof. Elie Wiesel, U.S. President Barack Obama, Betty Williams, Jody Williams and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter) have called for the rulers of Burma to release Suu Kyi „create the necessary conditions for a genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all concerned parties and ethnic groups in order to achieve an inclusive national reconciliation with the direct support of the United Nations.“

The Mae Tao Clinic (MTC), founded and directed by Dr. Cynthia Maung, provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers, and other individuals who cross the border from Burma to Thailand. People of all ethnicities and religions are welcome at the Clinic. Its origins go back to the student pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988 and the brutal repression by the Burmese regime of that movement. The fleeing students who needed medical attention were attended in a small house in Mae Sot. Located on the border in Mae Sot, people of all ethnicities and religions are welcome at the Clinic.

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Since 1989 the Mae Tao Clinic has grown, from that one small house to a large complex of simple buildings that provide a wide variety of health services to different groups of people. Today it serves a target population of approximately 150,000 on the Thai-Burma border. Exact numbers are hard to calculate because of the fluidity of the population. About 50% of those who come to MTC for medical attention are migrant workers in the Mae Sot area; the other 50% travel cross-border from Burma for care.

Mae Tao Clinic Objectives: To provide health services for displaced Burmese populations along the Thailand-Burma border, initial training of health workers and subsequent corollary medical education, strengthen health information systems along the border, improve health, knowledge, attitudes, and practices within local Burmese populations, promote collaboration among local ethnic health organizations, strengthen networking and partnering with international health professionals and institutions.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative was established in 2006 by sister Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. We six women — representing North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa — decided to bring together our extraordinary experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality. Only 12 women in its more than 100 year history have been recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize is a great honor, but it is also a great responsibility. It is this sense of responsibility that compelled us to create the Nobel Women’s Initiative to help strengthen work being done in support of women’s rights around the world – work often carried out in the shadows with little recognition.

www.tutu.org Archbishop Tutu´s Birthday wishes to Aung San Suu Kyi

We believe peace is much more than the absence of armed conflict. Peace is the commitment to equality and justice; a democratic world free of physical, economic, cultural, political, religious, sexual and environmental violence and the constant threat of these forms of violence against women indeed against all of humanity.

The Vision of the Nobel Women’s Initiative is a world transformed, a nonviolent world of security, equality and well-being for all. It is the heartfelt mission of the Nobel Women’s Initiative to work together as women Nobel Peace Prize Laureates to use the visibility and prestige of the Nobel prize to promote, spotlight, and amplify the work of women’s rights activists, researchers, and organizations worldwide addressing the root causes of violence, in a way that strengthens and expands the global movement to advance nonviolence, peace, justice and equality. We accomplish this mission through three main strategies: convening, shaping the conversation, and spotlighting and promoting.