Memorandum submitted by the VSO
COMMUNITY BASED ASSISTANCE: REACHING THE
INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE IN BURMA
How could DFID support Ethnic Youth and Women
groups along the Thai-Burma Border for Cross-border Programmes?
BACKGROUND
VSO is an international development agency that
works with professional volunteers and local partners to fight
global poverty and disadvantage. Most of our volunteers come from
the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Kenya, the Philippines and India.
In Thailand since 1968, we have placed VSO volunteers
working on disability and on natural resource management. We have
also placed volunteers on the Thai-Burma border since 1999, working
on educational issues affecting the hill tribes as well as migrants
and Burmese refugees.
VSO Thai-Burma Border Programme has launched
in partnership with Peace Way Foundation (Burma Issues) a new
project called "Rights and Participation", starting
from January 2006 for a three-year period on the Thai-Burma Border.
The objective of the project is to help women and young people
from ethnic minorities from Burma living along the Thai-Burma
border to gain the skills needed to realise their rights, and
to pursue reconciliation within and between their respective communities.
The project is funded by the European Community and Development
Cooperation Ireland.
During this three-year project VSO aims to support:
— Women and youth organisations
to be stronger and better able to support their members in realising
their rights; and
— Women and youth organisations
to understand each other better and to work more together.
To achieve these objectives VSO is supporting
a set of interventions:
— Teams of VSO volunteer professionals
placed within strategic partner organisations.
— Training courses and awareness-raising
workshops on topics like strategic planning, research and documentation,
leaderships, human rights.
— The Partnership Support Fund,
which will provide funding for organisations to carry out activities
that support the project's objectives.
— Other additional activities—eg
publications, exchange visits, internships etc.
By mid-2007, a dozen of VSO volunteers will
have joined the Women and Youth organisations they have been assigned
to, a number of various training courses will have been organised,
and several grants from our support fund will have been transferred
to our partner organisations in support of their activities. A
fruitful and promising cooperation has begun. Since the beginning,
though, one of the major concerns these partner organisations
have voiced is the fact that it is very difficult for them to
get funding for cross-border activities. A civil society, they
said, was being built in Thailand only because it was unthinkable
to do so inside Burma itself. The result is that although there
is an urgent need to bring assistance to populations across the
border, Community Based Organisations (CBOs) lead most of their
activities on Thai soil.
Not surprisingly then, DFID's decision to open
up to the possibility of funding cross-border activities could
not have been more welcome along the Thai-Burma border. As DFID
has engaged an inquiry in hearing the opinions of actors on the
ground, VSO decided to answer its call, limiting ourselves to
the field we know: Ethnic Youth and Women groups. An impressive
literature being already available and known to DFID on all the
issues related to IDPs, cross-border assistance and generally
Aid to Burma, the present document will focus only on a small
but nevertheless rich in opportunities part of the area potentially
supported in the future by DFID.
To submit this research we have interviewed
staff from 15 CBOs partner of VSO representing the view and concerns
of five different ethnic groups. It would be easy to mention a
great number of organisations involved in cross-border assistance,
and of people we interviewed when preparing this document and
all of them would deserve to be named. We made another choice
of not printing any names of organisations, agencies or individuals.
All those who cross the border with medicine, food, books, pencils
or other material intended to assist displaced communities are
taking amazing risks but are also operating illegally from Thailand.
To maintain a low profile is essential for these groups to carry
out their work. Meanwhile, we are ready to provide more detailed
information and contacts, if requested, to DFID and donors willing
to support cross-border assistance.
We want to thank all those we interviewed for
taking some of their precious time to answer our questions, and
for their frankness. We sometimes expected not to be answered
with full objectivity, especially when asking about the disadvantages
of cross-border assistance. We were proven wrong by individuals
in whom honesty seems to equal courage.
1. The situation inside Burma and the debate
over cross-border assistance
When writing about Burma, it is important to
start by saying that it is not possible to disconnect the humanitarian
crisis from its political roots. As a humanitarian aid worker
in a partner organization of VSO told us, what the people fleeing
the Burmese army want is "freedom and a life of human dignity,
a situation where they can farm, go to school, where women won't
get raped when they go to the market". In other words, "there
is no way they could live their lives peacefully until the Rule
of Law prevails in Burma."
Giving aid only through Rangoon not only lets
people in ethnic states suffer abuse and die without help or concern,
it also reinforces SPDC efforts to exclude these people from all
aid and political processes and will therefore ensure continued
marginalisation and civil war even if democracy comes. The only
valid option is therefore an approach of providing support through
both directions.
A dilemma one has to face when considering bringing
support to cross-border assistance lies in the obvious connections
between the CBOs providing support to Internal Displaced People
(IDPs) and the armed resistance. Aid workers crossing the border
rely most of the time on the security provided by ethnic liberation
armies or smaller armed groups. Moreover, while CBOs cooperate
with armed groups there is a defined independence between the
two. CBOs implement their plans based on their own aims and objectives,
without interference from the armed groups. For many, the population
from Burma refusing to leave their country and those who help
are seen as fighting non-violently for freedom and resisting oppression.
VSO, as an international organisation, has no
mandate to answer this dilemma. What remains is the fact that
CBOs are trying to provide assistance to those most in need, and
are dealing with a hardship they have not chosen and, on the contrary,
may very well help to resolve. It is therefore possible and important
to support CBOs for activities falling in line with capacity building
or education.
2. Advantages and disadvantages of cross
border assistance compared to Burma based assistance
The first, and noteworthy, advantage of cross-border
assistance has been very clear: there is no other way to reach
these populations. No agency in Rangoon is allowed to access most
rural areas, but many of these are and will be accessed by cross-border
aid.
As a consequence the question concerning IDPs
is no longer between cross-border or Burma based assistance, it
is between cross-border assistance or no assistance at all.
Local aid workers see other advantages to working
cross-border. Aid is more efficient because less costly (exchange
rate in Burma, organisational costs). A considerable freedom of
action and initiative for Thailand based CBOs compared to those
based in Burma. Without the burden of the Burmese military bureaucracy,
it is incredibly easier for NGOs and CBOs to hire and train their
staff. As a result, the number of local medical personnel ready
to work in difficult conditions such as the ones in malaria and
landmine infested jungle is much higher along the Thai-Burma border
than inside the country.
Last but not least, the perception of vulnerable
communities by aid workers and/or the international community
was a concern for several organisations we met. These people do
not want to be seen as "victim" only. As mentioned above,
a view generally accepted along the border is that populations
fleeing an army committing some of the worst atrocities for up
to six decades and refusing the relatively easy option of exile
are indeed defending their right to live in their homeland freely
and according to their own culture. As a member of one VSO partner
CBO puts it "when capacity building (which is the specific
area of work of most of the ethnic Youth and Women groups) is
added to humanitarian aid, communities are empowered and should
never be considered as passive victims". Another adds: "with
only humanitarian aid, you can at best provide assistance to victims.
With capacity building (from Thailand), you can retain a society".
Yet, many international NGOs workers interviewed
see several challenges. Neutrality, as well as independence, can
be questioned. CBOs working cross-border are often seen as non-neutral
but not overtly political as well. Monitoring and evaluation of
the impact is also technically difficult but yet possible. All
cross-border programmes can be well monitored because cross-border
aid has access to the target areas which funded initiatives through
Rangoon do not have to their own project areas. Consequently,
monitoring is not impossible, but just needs to be adapted to
the situation and needs to be looked at in a participatory way
with the CBOs, donors and beneficiaries
Cross-border assistance is clearly beyond the
normal frame of humanitarian assistance and can be unstable and
risky by nature. However, when looking at the recent pullout of
many international organisations based in Rangoon, Rangoon-based
aid appears fairly much more precarious and unreliable.
Another interviewed staff from a VSO partner
organisation points out the fact that when some communities receive
aid and others don't, which is difficult to avoid in this context,
it could create tensions. These tensions can be dissipated if
community and organisations are encouraged to share their new
skills and resource with the wider community.
3. Specific needs of young people and women
in IDP and other communities reached by cross-border assistance
In the context of a civil war, the primary need
of IDPs is security. Chased by the Burmese army, communities run
for their survival. Women are an easy target for the soldiers.
Children are also particularly vulnerable.
Unsurprisingly then, aid workers put communication
equipment, for early alert on the movements of the army, on top
of the list of what should be brought to IDPs, followed by medicine,
medical equipment, mosquito net, clothing, cooking utensils, tools
and plastic sheeting. The latter, it should be noted, becomes
a vital need when communities are "chased and chased again,
so frequently that they don't have the time to build shelters
on their own". Food is also urgently needed, since "the
SPDC tries to wipe-out food supplies", and that communities
on the run simply cannot grow anything. According to several women
and youth workers, the situation is deteriorating dramatically,
with the growing risk of seeing new waves of refugees crossing
the border to Thailand.
Beyond these basic humanitarian needs, a strong
emphasis has been made by all the interviewees on Education. Cross-border
aid does not reach only IDPs, but also villagers in SPDC-controlled
areas and relocation sites to whom Rangoon based groups are not
allowed access. For the vast majority of the villagers who could
be reached by cross-border aid, [50]there
is no education available after primary school. In addition, IDP
communities and villagers are often reduced to no education at
all as they are continuously fleeing the Burmese army. How can
someone teach children when hiding in the jungle? Thus, the illiteracy
rates, especially among women, are very high, a tragic situation
three generations have now faced, with all the dire consequences
on health, especially reproductive health, and hygiene. Health-trainings
and public health campaigns are much needed in these communities.
As a member of one CBO told us, "When we arrive in a community
we meet with some young promising leaders. But they often cannot
communicate properly with the groups outside enough to get the
information they need. For example, only old women with traditional
knowledge know how to help give birth. It would make things much
easier for us if the communities were ready to take care of themselves".
In such conditions, many villagers get married young and the birth
rate is very high. If they are empowered and organised in social
networks, communities see their ability to participate in decision
making improving.
Education as such is a major concern for all
these communities. Many children are sent across the border to
go to the only schools available, and are therefore separated
from their families. Schools and teachers exist inside Burma itself,
but nowhere near a number that could match the needs. Where they
exist, books are missing and teachers leave because of the lack
of a descent salary and motivation. An improved network of schools
with better professional support offered to teachers such as training
could help communities keep their children with them and provide
them with a proper education. Another CBO staff says that there
is "no hope, no choice for them. Some come to Thailand, but
most stay in their homeland. Some young men join armies not even
because they want to fight, but because this is one of the few
opportunity they get. So we should increase the capacity building.
Doing that, we would be preparing for the future too".
At the agricultural level, new skills are also
highly needed when displaced communities have fled fertile low
lands to hide in the mountainous jungle. The villagers have no
other way to earn their living except farming. Even mothers with
babies have to go to work. Their aim is just to get enough food
for a year so that they would be able to survive. They grow rice,
chilly, tobacco, corn and other vegetables in traditional ways.
The productivity is usually very low, especially when people have
been displaced to new land where different farming techniques
and knowledge are required. The need to shift from "slash
and burn" practices to paddy rice farming is essential but
it will take intensive help and time to develop. Displaced populations
are in great need of vocational trainings to learn new farming
techniques.
Apart from the urgent humanitarian needs of
the IDPs as a whole, education is the main area where support
could be improved. While the first are covered by a few humanitarian
aid organisations providing assistance from Thailand, education,
health awareness, vocational trainings and capacity building could
be provided by the dozens of ethnic Youth and Women groups (or
others such as environmental CBOs) organised along the Thai-Burma
border. These groups exist, are efficient, and could easily make
a difference, but so far their action has been limited to a large
extent to Thailand; only there can they find donors ready to support
their activties.
Because VSO works in partnership with CBOs on
a daily basis and sees their successes, we could not be more supportive
of any move that would allow them to improve their cross-border
activities, which they have repeatedly shown as a priority.
4. Projects implemented by Youth and Women
groups that could be developed and improved if funded by donors
such as DFID
Arakan, Mon, Karen, Karenni, Shan, Lahu, Palaung,
Pa-O, Chin and Kachin Youth and Women groups, only to mention
those we know of, already provide cross-border assistance, on
different scales. The projects that are listed below are, for
the most part, also run in Thailand, for refugees or migrant workers
and their children. VSO is implementing its programme and providing
support only in Thailand.
Many ethnic women's groups are managing nursery
and primary schools in IDP areas, refugee camps and migrant communities.
The youth groups are also developing higher education programmes
(Post-10) for gifted students who have completed Standard-10 but
have no other opportunity in the formal system. Beyond regular
schools, Youth and Women's groups organise special education centers,
deaf and blind schools, training courses on community organising,
leadership, women empowerment, public participation, advocacy,
local governance development, basic healthcare, hygiene, HIV-Aids,
etc. They also provide teachers' stipends and even build facilities
like dormitories for children of IDPs coming to refugee camps
to get an education. Many women and youth groups are also producing
education materials, newsletters and reports. Internship programs
also bring trainees from inside Burma to Thailand, from where
they will return with a brand new set of skills and knowledge.
An area in education which would need to receive
greater support is in inclusive education. To develop and promote
inclusive education practices in schools in the refugee camps
and within the migrant communities would be of great benefit for
these communities. After conducting a need assessment in this
field in mid-2006, from the information collected, it was obvious
that there was a gap in the assistance provided and VSO designed
a project aimed at addressing this need. VSO is currently seeking
funding for a three-year project aiming at supporting inclusive
education on the Thai-Burma border.
Programmes aiming at agriculture, like the rice
banks, or vocational trainings, are also organised and have proven
successful and could also be developed. Sustainable income generation
through the agriculture sector is essential for farmers.
Apart from the fact that Women and Youth groups
are able to work in war and rural zones, which INGOs are currently
unable to reach, these groups have an in-depth knowledge about
communities they themselves are a part of. They have been involved
in education, capacity building, advocacy and community organising
for over 15 years, with results widely acknowledged.
Somehow, they should nevertheless be the first
to benefit from renewed support. Resettlement programs launched
inside the refugee camps have taken their toll on CBO staff number.
After years of benevolent work members, because they are becoming
older, often get married and consequently have children. Unfortunately,
they cannot afford to keep on working without a salary which their
group receives no funding for. A wealth of efficient, dedicated
and knowledgeable young professionals leave the Thai-Burma border
only because they do not receive the relatively low salaries they
would need, and beyond any doubt deserve. As a consequence, the
turn-over in these groups is a major obstacle to better assistance
for refugees, migrant workers and IDPs.
The same can be said of teachers in schools
welcoming children from all these different communities: IDPs,
migrants, refugees. Providing a salary for the teachers, funding
for the buildings and the books and stationery is the first priority
to improve education in areas where an institutional system is
missing, and where only local CBOs can organise non-formal education.
Hundreds of schools and teachers are already supported, and developing
successful initiatives would not take more than extra funding.
The benefits of cross border aid for this population
are huge. Not only parts of the community receive direct assistance,
but the whole community is strengthened by the links established
and nurtured through the projects, the participatory methods introduced
and, very simply, by the hope carried by the CBOs.
CONCLUSION
In the context of a protracted civil war, cross-border
assistance could hardly not prove challenging.
In the eventuality of DFID supporting directly
some of these groups for cross border assistance activities, it
is yet to be seen whether they have the skills to deal with strict
funding rules and complex financial management requirements. Training
would be definitely needed in that field. The absence of legal
registration of these CBOs in Thailand could be in itself an issue
to overcome in case of direct funding. Other funders have found
ways around these problems, but it requires a willingness to give
aid to people instead of states organisations.
Cross-border assistance is today the only way
to reach remote communities along the borders of Burma. Especially
when led by CBOs, it is also a very positive experience of strengthening
societies. It is both a window opened on the outside world for
IDPs, and one opened on Burma for the aid community.
The fact that the practicalities of any financial
support DFID could provide to Youth or Women groups are yet to
be resolved should be in no way an obstacle to making the decision
to get involved with organisations that prove every day how critical
their role is in protecting populations today and preparing for
a peaceful and democratic tomorrow.
50 According to CBO staff that we interviewed, this
represents all of Karen and Kayah states, one third of Pegu division,
half of Tenasserim division and half of Shan State. Back
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