Karenni Social Development Center

Welcome to the Karenni Social Development Center

We are a small community based organization located on the Thai-Burma border. Our goal is to protect the environment in our state and promote the human rights of the long suffering Karenni people. Furthermore we aim to build a new society based upon the rule of the law. On this website, we provide information about our organization, our activities, our monthly publications and opportunities to support our work.

Thank you for showing an interest in our community!

Most recent event: KSDC Alumni launch the Peace Initiative Program

PIP staff ready for their workshop

A new project to empower young Karenni people has begun courtesy of our SDC Alumni. Over the past few months, SDC alumni have been working hard to prepare and design a program to create the change they desire in their community. As a result of this dedication, last month, they successfully began running the Peace Initiative Program (PIP).

In order to set up this organization, our alumni ran a series of meetings. The first meeting was for all alumni who were interested in being involved in a new organization to provide help for their community.

This meeting allowed for an overview of the need for the organization and an opportunity to talk about aims. After this, later meetings focused on designing an outline for the organization, its committee and planning some upcoming projects.

As a product of these meetings, the Peace Initiative Program created aims for their organisation. Their organizational aims are as follows:

“To provide the Karenni students and disadvantaged youths in camp and inside Karenni state with the opportunity to engage in the democratic process in Burma and to voice the concerns of human rights violations in Karenni state.”

All of the members participated in the meetings. The committee are 16 alumni of SDC who all have their own roles working for the betterment of their community. The responsibilities that they are taking on as part of the PIP are all completely voluntary.

PIP has already successfully completed two workshops in the camp. The workshops they have completed focused on drug and alcohol awareness for young people in Karenni Refugee Camp 1. At each of the trainings, there were over 30 young people attending.

After the workshops, they received plenty of positive feedback from the participants. Some of the feedback included that the participants would stop using alcohol because of what they had learned. Others said they would raise awareness within their family on the dangers of alcoholism.

PIP is excited to bring about a positive future for our youth. They have plans to develop activities and strategies to increase young people’s participation in Karenni Refugee Camp 1. Their future aims are to run projects further afield in Karenni State.

Within their organisation, members are enthusiastic to develop an engaged political youth for the future. We hope they will be able to unite our alumni as a common force for positive steps to a free and democratic Karenni State for the youth and future generations.

         PIP staff with some of their participants after a successful workshop

The Karenni Social Development Center (SDC) provides access to a successful training program with classes in Human Rights, Democracy, law, environment, computer, and English. SDC trains young refugees to become advocates in non-violent social change.

SDC is supported by grants from American Jewish World Service, Refugees International Japan, Open Society Institute and is recognized by Burma Volunteer Programs. We are a partner organisation of EarthRights International and our advanced course is conducted jointly with them.  The Curriculum Project and Mote Oo Education provide in-kind donations of textbooks.

Donate

You are our tomorrow

The SDC needs your support!  The SDC has trained over 240 young men and women thanks to the generosity of its donors.

– Provide computers for students

The students have grown up without computers.  Access to technology will give 21st century skills and additional English language practice.  At this time, donations of new and gently used electronic equipment (projectors, printers, camcorders, etc.) and office equipment are most appreciated.

– Help us grow

The SDC now has 50 basic course students and 20 advanced course students.  Additional funding feeds, houses and trains more students, giving access to education for young Karenni people passionate about helping their community. We also accept material donations.

– Support the inside program

Real change for Burma is going to happen at the grassroots level.  Select SDC alumni go inside and conduct mobile trainings, documentation trips, and outreach activities within Karenni state.

To enquire about making a donation, please email Myar Reh at OfficeSDC@yahoo.com or contact us using the address and details on the side of the page.

Students practice reading skills using Penguin Readers donated by Elinor Costa-Low. In-kind donations of educational materials and office equipment help us to modernize our operations.

Contact us

Our information

• Contact

  SDC School, PO BOX 20
  Mae Hong Son, Thailand
  58000
  +66 0898526619
  officesdc@yahoo.com

  

Our Mission

Mission

 The vision of Social Development Center is to promote the lives of the people who have suffered human rights abuses, to teach non-violent skills to build up a new society, to develop the rule of law, to value human dignity and to protect the environment. 

 

Photos

Photos

How to apply

How to apply 

Every year between February and May, KSDC staff travel to pre-determined at Karenni High School to recruit new students for the program. The testing consists of one written tests and an interview. The first test is an English proficiency test that tests the candidates’ reading and writing skills, as well as their grammar. The candidates that get a sufficient score on the English test, will be called in for an interview with one of the program teachers, who will assess their listening and speaking skills, while considering whether the candidates are suitable for the program. Finally, the candidates have to take a computer test to test their computer proficiency.

Entry requirements

If you can say yes to the following requirements, then you can apply to be one of next year’s students at Karenni Social Development Center:

•   Have pass high school from camp or inside Burma

•   Have intermediate Burmese language skills

•   Is between the ages of 16-25

The specific dates and testing sites will be announced in January on this website and on our Facebook page. To apply you simply have to bring a completed application and reference form from your high school headmaster or supervisor to a testing site to take exams and interview.

Success stories

 2013 - Present Alumni
Our most recent alumni are already delivering results and making change in their communities: Read their stories here:
Deni’s Story 2012-2013. Read the story of Deni, a long-neck Kayan. Since completing our Advanced Course, he has joined our organisation as a teaching assistant and to serve his community.
Law Wha’s Story 2012-2013. Read the story of Law Wha, a former SDC student, who is now working as a teacher in his community.
Nga Meh’s Story 2012-2013. Read the story of Nga Meh, who spent her whole life in Refugee Camp 1. She is now an office worker supporting the education of young Karenni people.
Reh Suang Oo’s Story 2012-2013. Read the story of Reh Suang Oo. With his education from SDC, Reh Suang Oo was soon able to become a director of a vocational training organisation within Karenni Refugee Camp 1.
Shar Myar Kay’s Story 2013-2014. Read the story of Shar Myar Kay. She spent her childhood in Karenni State but later had to move to Karenni Refugee Camp 1.
Klaw Reh’s Story 2014 – 2015. Read the story of Klaw Reh. A fire destroyed his home during his time at SDC but he continued to work and study hard for his community.

Students Newsletters

The experience of and the follow-up to flooding in Karenni Refugee Camp 1

October 2014 

Researched and written by Khu Mi Reh, Seh Reh Htoo and Maw Khar Ra Lay

Background of flooding in Karenni Refugee Camp 1

Karenni Refugee Camp 1 is in the valley and the land is not flat. It is not a suitable place for people to stay. If they continue to live there, they will continue to experience the effects of flooding. Most people want to cut trees and bamboo. They want to prepare farmland. They cut down a lot of tress so flooding ca affect them. In 2004, they experienced flooding. At that time, they lost a lot of materials.  

Lost materials during the flooding 

This paragraph will list the damaged materials from the flooding, at 10:30pm on the night of Tuesday the 26th August 2015, in Karenni Refugee Camp 1.

In Karenni Camp 1, about 700 people have been affected by the flooding. The flooding damaged 172 houses. After the flooding, there can be more affects to the community because it causes many materials to be lost or damaged. There was more damage to buildings near the stream. Also, a landslide affected the houses near the mountain. The flooding has created many different effects to our community. The flooding caused the loss of both organizational materials and personal materials.

The community lost public buildings and materials. They lost; a boarding school; the BK clinic and other materials. They also lost the clinic for babies, the ration storehouse, the coal storehouse, the pipes, the road and the bridge. All of these public buildings and materials were destroyed.

The personal materials destroyed were; houses; fences; toilets; agricultural land; rice; pots; plates; coal; firewood; blankets; glasses; saucepans; chairs; tables; shoes; clothes; hoes; blankets; pillows; bamboo; yellow beans; and other materials. All of these personal materials were lost in flooding. People also lost animals. They lost pigs, chickens and fish.

  U Khu Reh and Daw Oo Meh said “When there was flooding, we lost food, chick houses and some money. We lost 10,000 baht, a ring and jewelry.”

Additionally, when there was flooding, some people lost their lives. The flooding did not only damage a few materials. The damage included all of the materials in the house. For the school, the materials that were damaged in the school were; tables; chairs; the classroom; and a blackboard.

The materials destroyed in the boarding house were; a television; documents; books; blankets; buckets; glasses; chairs; tables; banana trees; and agricultural land. For the health center, they lost; soap; mosquito nets; chairs; and all of their materials.

For BT clinic, they lost; soap; handkerchiefs; oxygen; batteries; blankets; cupboards; a stretcher; blood packets; flashlights; a television and a DVD player; and diesel. They also lost materials in their laboratory. They lost; 12 microscopes and a refrigerator.

For the rice storehouse, they lost; rice, yellow split peas; sweetened wheat; and a wall. For the coal storehouse, they lost coal. People living near the river in the Nai Soi area also lost their farmland and their roads were damaged.

All of the public in Karenni Refugee Camp 1 have experienced flooding so they spoke out about how they felt.

   
KSDC celebrates the 2014 – 2015 Basic Course Graduation

Posted on April 4, 2015 by sdcthailand

 

2014-2015 Basic Course Graduation 

All of our SDC staff, students and community are happy to announce the completion of our SDC Basic Course for 2014 – 2015. We marked the end of this course with our graduation ceremony for the class of 2014 – 2015. We held our graduation ceremony on Saturday the 28^th of March 2015 for the 48 successful graduates of our 2014 – 2015 Basic Course.

Before holding the ceremony, students and staff prepared for the ceremony. We invited an audience comprising of many different sectors of our Karenni Society. Many of our alumni attended our ceremony. Other attendees included parents, relatives, friends and supporters of our SDC. There were also the students of the women’s study program.

A number of leaders attended the ceremony alongside the Coordinator of SDC, Aung Sun Myint Steven. Attendees of the ceremony included the Karenni Health minister, Karenni Refugee Committee chairperson and the head of the Karenni Education Department. The leaders made a series of speeches to our audience. These speeches varied from encouragement for the future to explanations of our situation. The leaders spoke in both Burmese and Karenni language.

This ceremony celebrated the achievements of the students in the core subjects of Human Rights, Environment and Law. During the course, the students also participated in research and a moot court. Additionally for the first time, we provided SDC students with an opportunity to participate in internships.

Our students entering the ceremony

During the ceremony, the students collected their certificates. There were also prizes for the top students in each of the subjects. On the stage, our students also provided our audience with singing of songs and traditional dancing.

After the ceremony, we ate together and shared about our experiences and our future plans. After the SDC basic course, our students make important decisions as to their future. Some will continue their studies on our SDC Advanced Community Management Training Course. Some of the other students will begin working at organisations in our community.

This year’s graduation class was our biggest ever class with 48 students graduating in total. The increase in numbers of our program is due to both the interest of the students and the need for the knowledge of these subjects to be disseminated amongst our community. Our ability to run a course for this many students is founded on stability within our organisation. For this stability, we must thank our donors, partners and supporters for providing us with encouragement to go on and reach our goals.
We are very proud of our new graduates and we look forward to them fulfilling their aspirations. It was a pleasure to hold our graduation ceremony and to share our achievements with our community. We are confident we can continue to garner further success in the future.

Our graduates at the ceremony

Our Staff 

Aung Sun Myint Steven, EarthRights School, Class of 2000General Coordinator

• 
• Student Adviser
• Community Relations (ERS, alumni, refugee community)    
• Proposal and Report Writing
• School and Project Planning
• Inside Program Coordination 

 

Khu Myar Reh, EarthRights School, Class of 2007
Principal / Treasurer

• 
• Democracy Trainer
• Student affairs
• Alumni and community coordination
• Proposal and report writing
• Volunteer Liaison and Recruitment  

 Maw Thyamar. EarthRights School, Class of 2008
Trainer / Accountant 

• 
• Trainer (Environment, Social Studies)
• Accounting and Financial report writing
• Dormitory Management
• Proposal and Report Writing
• School Project and Schedule Drafting
• Program Coordination
• Guest teacher Coordination
• Student Welfare Assistance  

Khu Klaw Reh, Karenni SDC Advanced Course, Class of 2009
Human Rights Trainer/ Students’ Affairs

• Human rights
• Child rights
• Indigenous people’s rights
• Women’s rights
• Facilities management
• Resources monitoring

Mudee Paw, Karenni SDC Class of 2011, BLC Class of 2012
Trainer

• Rule of law
• Constitutional law
• Humanitarian law

Deh Ni, Karenni SDC Advanced Course, Class of 2013
Teacher Assistant

• Office Assistant
  
• Facilities management
• Resources monitoring

   






Management Course, Class of 2008,  Computer Trainer 

• Computers
  
• Media editing

Volunteers

The SDC has had many international volunteers since it began in 2003. In recent years, we have had the pleasure of welcoming these ESL and subject teachers:

Daniel from the USA, Sarah Birkebak from the USA, Leah Sawyer Baker from Australia, Peter, Hay-Din from New Zealand, Paula from Colombia, Allison from the UK, Lynette Nam from Australia, Emily Ward from the USA, Justin Shenk from the USA, Hannah Feldman from the UK, Wong Jiayi Felicia from Singapore, Patricia Louie from Canada, Andy Smith from the UK, Julia Branco from the USA, Elliot Billingsley from the USA, Morgan Watson from the USA and Eleanor De Giberne Sieveking from the UK.

Karenni News

Htoe Myar — Karenni State residents say they want teachers who teach their school subjects after hours to the students for a fee to stop doing so.

Social Service and Development Department’s Director Sayarma Naw Lee Myar said the government needs to enforce the education law that bans tuition.

“Now, preschool children are being taught lessons and asked to write. Kindergarten students have to attend tuition. The students from the 9th and 10th standards have no time to rest. Sometimes, they couldn’t even rest when the schools are closed. They have to attend tuition. Although they a chance to attend schools and learn, they are living with stress. Many children don’t get to play during playtime because they are being pressured with school work,” she said.

Daw Shar Buu, a teacher from Demoso High School, said the tuition system is inconvenient for parents and causes poor morale for the students who cannot afford the after hours classes.

Troops from the Burmese government’s Border Guard Force (BGF) injured three members of the unarmed Pat Ja San (PJS) opium eradication team when they attacked them on the morning of 25 February.

Digitalwatch

The States Parties to the present Convention,

Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.

Bearing in mind that the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

Karenni future stars

  KARENNI TRADITIONAL

 

 

Karenni Social Development Center (KSDC) is a CBO organization which is located in Karenni Refugee Camp #1, Ban Mai Nai Soi, Mae Hong Son, Thailand. KSDC was founded by 3 alumnus of Earthrights School Burma (ESB) named Aung Sun Myint, Maw Gna Meh and Ti No in 2002. The vision of the KSDC is to promote the lives of the Karenni people who suffered human rights abuses, promote non-violent efforts to build a new society, develop the rule of law, and protect the environment. KSDC's training program aims is to spread knowledge and skills regarding human rights, environment and law on the Thai-Burma border. 

ပေါက်ကြားမေးခွန်း အင်တာနက်တင်သူ အဖမ်းခံရ  

စာမေးပွဲ မတိုင်ခင် ကြိုတင် ပေါက်ကြား ခဲ့တဲ့ မေးခွန်း လွှာတွေကို အင်တာနက် စာမျက်နှာ ပေါ်တင် ခဲ့တဲ့ အတွက် အမျိုးသား တယောက်ကို မကွေးမြို့ မြို့မ ရဲစခန်းက အီလက် ထရောနစ် ဆက်သွယ်ရေး ပုဒ်မနဲ့ အမှုဖွင့် ဖမ်းဆီး လိုက်ပါတယ်။

မေးခွန်းအမှားနဲ့ မေးခွန်းပေါက်ကြားမှုများ အငြင်းပွားဖွယ်ဖြစ်နေ

      အဖမ်းဆီး ခံရသူ အမျိုး သားဟာ ပညာရေး ဝန်ထမ်း မဟုတ်ဘဲ သာမန် အရပ်သား တယောက် ဖြစ်တယ်လို့ ဆိုပါတယ်။







မြစ်ကြီးနားမှာ လူထောင်ချီ ဆန္ဒပြ

         ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ ၂၅ ရက်နေ့က ကချင်ပြည်နယ်မှာ ဘိန်းခင်းဖျက်ဖို့သွားတဲ့ Pat Jasan လို့အမည်ရတဲ့ ကချင်လူမှုအထောက်အကူပြု မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးအဖွဲ့ကို လက်နက်ကိုင် လူတစုက ဝင်ရောက်တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့လို့ Pat Jasan အဖွဲ့က ၁၈ ယောက် ဆေးရုံတင်ရသလို တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့သူ ၂၁ ယောက်ကိုလည်း လူထုကဖမ်းပြီး ရဲလက်ကို အပ်ထားပါတယ်။

ဒီလိုတိုက်ခိုက်ခံရတာကို မကျေနပ်လို့ မြစ်ကြီးနားမြို့ပေါ်မှာ ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ ၂၆ ရက် မနက်က လူထုထောင်နဲ့ချီ ဆန္ဒပြခဲ့ကြပါတယ်။

မြစ်ကြီးနား

ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ ၂၅ ရက်နေ့က ကချင်ပြည်နယ်မှာ ဘိန်းခင်းဖျက်ဖို့သွားတဲ့ Pat Jasan လို့အမည်ရတဲ့ ကချင်လူမှုအထောက်အကူပြု မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးအဖွဲ့ကို လက်နက်ကိုင် လူတစုက ဝင်ရောက်တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့လို့ Pat Jasan အဖွဲ့က ၁၈ ယောက် ဆေးရုံတင်ရသလို တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့သူ ၂၁ ယောက်ကိုလည်း လူထုကဖမ်းပြီး ရဲလက်ကို အပ်ထားပါတယ်။

အနာဂတ်သစ် ထုဆစ်ပုံဖော် - ပညာရေးကဏ္ဍ

20 ဇန်နဝါရီ 2016 17:05 GMT နောက်ဆုံး ရေးသားသည်။ 

အစိုးရသစ်လက်ထက်မှာ ပညာရေးကဏ္ဍကို ဘယ်လို ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲသွားမှာပါလဲ။ ဘယ်အပိုင်းတွေကို ဦးစားပေး ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမှာပါလဲ။ အခြေခံ ပညာရေးနဲ့ တက္ကသိုလ် ပညာရေးတွေမှာ ဘယ်လိုနည်းနဲ့ အဆင့်မြင့်အောင် လုပ်သွားမှာပါလဲ။

အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီရွေးကောက်ခံ ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များ အဖွဲ့ရဲ့ ပညာရေးကော်မီတီ ဥက္ကဌ၊ ရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ် ကထိကဟောင်း ဒေါ်စုစုလွင်ကို ကိုမင်းထက်က ဆက်သွယ်မေးမြန်းထားပါတယ်။ See more pictures.....

 

Opening Ceremony

Wide Horizons School is located in Mae Sot, Thailand and founded in 2006. Our mission is to develop the capacity of young adults from the Thai-Burma border by improving their project management, English and computer skills to work effectively as community leaders. 

Executive Summary

New Wave School was founded by Mr. Zaw Htet in 2008 with 7 teachers and 128 students. They started with Nursery to Grade-6. Currently, there are 10 teachers and 130 students in the school and they offer Nursery until Grade 7. It is located 1km from the market in Tak province, Thailand.

 In this community, students and teachers do not feel safe with the school building because it was built using low quality materials. The roof, wall and floor are broken and decayed. Consequently, students and teachers are facing leaking water from the roof, rain water is splashing in through the holes of the walls and a decaying floor that makes students unable to sweep the rubbish on the floor, place desks and chairs on the cracked areas. Therefore, the community would like to rebuild the dilapidated school building from February to March, 2016 to provide a safe and sturdy school building for the community.

After the implementation, it will allow the community to have a conducive and safe classroom building that can last at least 7 years without needing any repairs. This will encourage students to concentrate more in their lessons. 

For implementing this project, we are requesting funds to partially or wholly cover the costs of rebuilding the school - 185,230 Baht for the foundation, 326,200 Baht for the divider, and 852,130 Baht for the roof.  

Organization Background

Wide Horizons School is located in Mae Sot, Thailand and founded in 2006. Our mission is to develop the capacity of young adults from the Thai-Burma border by improving their project management, English and computer skills to work effectively as community leaders.

 The organization is made out of 4 full-time staffs and 2 part-time staff with years of experience in working in communities.

We collaborate with 7 main partners such as World Education and Burmese Migrant Worker’s Education Committee. We are funded by over 5 organizations such as USAID and Thai Children’s Trust.

Past Community Projects

Over 200 students have graduated from Wide Horizons since 2006 until now. Over the last 8 years, WH has run more than 15 projects in different communities. For example, students completed a fence project in Elpis dormitory successfully in (2014-2015) academic year. When they return to their own organizations, they have helped with computers, management, writing proposal, translation and interpretation.

Programs

Wide Horizons is a 2-year leadership development program.  The first year is for studying and the second is for internship in their mother CBOs. We have 3 subjects namely Community Development that trains students organizational and management skills, English and Computer.  For this academic year, 24 students are working in groups of 4 with 4 different community projects. Each project is organized by 6 students.

Awards 

     The UNESCO Wenhui Award for Educational Innovation 2014.

Team Members

            For this academic year, 24 students are working on in groups of 6 on 4 different community projects. This project is organized by six member students:

Mu Ku                         (Karen Students Network Group)

Mary                            (Bridge Organization)

Pa Pa Moe                   (Karenni Social Development Centre)

Kyi Khala                    (Mon National Education Committee)

Jhon                             (Mae Tao Clinic)­

Ko Ko                                     (Hsa Thoo Lei Orphanage, IDP Learning Center)