Sometimes Money Isn't Enough

I forgot to take my shoes off at the first school I visited in Mae Sot. It is something I have had the misfortune of forgetting all week.
I had arrived at one of the projects helped by VSO volunteer Simon. It is a migrant school, that by definition, throws up a host of problems. And me walking in with my shoes done up was probably the least of the concerns but I felt a right idot.

Burmese in Thailand have various status.
Being a refugee means you live in a refugee compound.
If you are a migrant you are general  illegal, although there are lots of loopholes in the system.

So at a migrant school you find nearly all of the children and teachers are both illegal. And these are the children that turn up and don't have to work. This week is harvest time and in some of the schools all of the children are out working in the fields. They could be arrested at any time and deported. It is one of the reasons that the streets of Mae Sot are like a ghost town after dark, because the majority of people shouldn't be there.



Entire schools often find that they are moved on, such is their illegal status.

Even if you manage to get children and teachers into one place, what do you teach? Thai has an 'education for all' policy that in reality doesn't mean all. Some of the illegal children would be welcome to join Thai schools, but they speak Burmese.

And if migrant school qualifications aren't realised, then what is the point?

Up until now, there was no curriculum to follow. VSO has been working hard in this area, both with the curriculum itself, negotiations between departments and  the practical implication.

Simon's job isn't sexy one in media terms. But more and more often it is the things that are going on behind the scenes that are so important. That's where his management skills come in. Working between a heap of schools, NGOs, government departments and police, he is helping untangle the mess that is as politically charged as it is complicated.

This is one of the children at one of the schools. For me it brings very unquantifyable and dry matters such as migration and infrastructure into a real context. If the eyes are the window to the soul then Burmese children have souls that run deep.

It's the same for Simon. If he needs any reminder, the aim in all this is only just a few feet away.

I was surprised at just how complicated the situation is. It's more complicated than I can post here or that I can fully understand from a brief visit. More complicated I fear, than will often make the mainstream media Just throwing resources at a problem can't always fix it. Of course, you need finances to help with these schemes and that is vital. But I think it's why VSO's straplines of Sharing Skills, Changing Lives is right, not sharing cash, changing lives. Sometimes money isn't enough.