School’s Out…Indefinitely

On Friday, April 22, I traveled with several members of FED to the small fishing community of Susamalan in the Province of Ranong, approximately 100 km north of Khoalak, where Mickey and I have been living and volunteering. The community is comprised of about 100 Burmese migrant families, who are primarily fishermen.
The area was impacted by the 2004 Tsunami.

Amongst the FED staff was the Education Coordinator, the Deputy Director (the young woman I have been mentoring) a teacher (who is currently earning her masters degree in Bangkok) a Burmese woman who was taking her vacation time away from her work in Burma to help FED, and a project supervisor of FED, who is himself a former fisherman and whose wife conducted the Human Rights training sessions the week before. He also drove the truck to our destination.

We all piled into the organization’s truck, with multiple stops on the way for treats and bathroom breaks and to pick up and drop off folks, which is very typical. The purpose of the trip was of extreme importance to this community and FED. The community “leader” of Susamalan, a local fisherman and father, along with several parents and teachers, requested that FED meet with them and consider lending them assistance in reopening the local school for their children, which has been closed for over a year, with no near future prospect of reopening any time soon of their own volition for economic reasons.
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Following the Tsunami, another organization had taken over the school, only to abandon it over a year ago. The 50 or so children of many different ages have not gone to school now for over a year. When the former organization ran the school, the parents contributed about 100 BAHT a piece, or $3 a month, towards school. The organization was to take care of the remaining expenses, which included salaries for two Burmese teachers, two Thai teachers (who are traditionally paid almost twice as much in any school here), a “general” employee and a cook to make lunch for the children.

I was astounded and deeply saddened that there is no alternative for these children but to wait and see if someone can step in to help get their school going again and how inexpensive, by our standards, it would be to do so.

FED is very willing to lend assistance to the community in terms of training and guidance, but FED must support its own learning centers and the Outreach for High School students, with rising costs and expansions in the future.

In order to succeed, the community needs to guarantee the number of students who will attend the school should it reopen, and the parents need to make a financial and philosophical commitment, designating someone to take care of financial issues and who is fiscally responsible.

During the meeting, which took place in one of the small rooms of the school house, (which is a small wood and brick structure, comprised of about 4 small rooms), there were young children playing in the overgrown yard on swings and a slide in dire need of repair and paint. They had accompanied those parents who attended the meeting. The schoolrooms are dusty and filled with small blue desks and chairs, and blackboards also full of dust from not being used in too long.

It made me incredibly sad seeing these adorable and engaging children playing in the overgrown yard with the school rooms dusty and vacant, chairs and desks stacked up, or overturned and unused.