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NCGUB: News on Migrants & Refugees- 4 December, 2009(English & Burmese)
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NEWS ON MIGRANTSFunding Cuts Threaten Dr Cynthia's ClinicNEWS ON REFUGEES
Chins in dire straits: CSW11,000 Burmese granted UN refugee statusUN aid ‘loaned’ to Chin famine victims
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Funding Cuts Threaten Dr Cynthia's ClinicBy SAW YAN NAING Thursday, December 3, 2009
The Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand, is facing a 25 percent shortfall in operatingcosts as international donors reduce funding and distance themselves from cross-border aid projects.Founded by Dr Cynthia Maung in 1989 in the wake of the 1988 uprising in Burma,the internationally acclaimed Mae Tao Clinic, which is located just a few kilometersfrom the Thai-Burmese border, has catered to the health needs, maternity care,emergency operations and education of thousands of Burmese people in the past 20years.The clinic offers free care to between 300 and 400 Burmese patients every day—sometraveling from Burma, others living in Thailand.
“The Mae Tao Clinic is struggling with a major funding crisis,” wrote Cynthia Maungin a letter on the clinic's Web site on Oct. 27. “We estimate a shortfall of about US$350,000 in 2009 and US $750,000 in 2010. That's a quarter of our operating budget.”The cut in funding comes at a time when the number of Burmese refugees in Thailandhas increased due to conflict in eastern Burma. Attacks on ethnic areas, said CynthiaMaung, has “forced a stream of displaced people, including orphans andunaccompanied children, over the border in search of food, shelter and education.”Saw Aung Than Wai, a research coordinator for the Mae Tao Clinic, said the clinic isworried about its budget because its funding has been cut, but the number of patientsgrows by about 20 percent a year.The clinic is now actively seeking donations to get it through to the end of the year. Itis also soliciting organizations and foundations to secure funding for 2010 and beyond,according to the letter.The clinic has already reduced some minor training programs, but day-to-day healthcare is still operating normally, so far, said the researcher.Medical staff salaries might be cut and staff will be asked to serve voluntarily forseveral months if the funding is not secured by end of 2009, he added.The Mae Tao Clinic also operates schools for Burmese children and currently feeds2,143 students in boarding houses every day through its Emergency Dry FoodProgram, Cynthia Maung said.She said that one of the clinic's government donors, “one of our longtime and largestsupporters,” can no longer fund the clinic because of changes to government policy.Western governments, including the EU, Australia and the US, have indicated thatthey want to focus humanitarian assistance directly inside Burma as they haveidentified several unsuccessful results of cross-border aid, and they are able to dealdirectly with victims of Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta area by working out of Rangoon, some observers have said.Due to the funding crisis, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) based in Thailand,such as the Thailand Burma Border Consortium and the National Health andEducation Committee (NHEC), have reduced their financial support to their partnergroups.The NHEC is now unable to provide materials to several ethnic educationdepartments in Burma as it has not received the allocated funds from its respectivedonors, according to an officer working with the NHEC.Many schoolteachers in Mon State in southeastern Burma who have received fundingfrom donors, including NHEC and the Open Society Institute (OSI), have beenworking without salaries since June after the donors were unable to provide funds toMon education authorities.
Dr. Thiha Maung, the director of NHEC's health program, said transparency andaccountability are still needed, whether humanitarian aid is channeled inside Burma oracross the Thai-Burmese border.He said despite the advantages of operating officially within Burma, NGOs face agreat many restrictions from the Burmese military authorities.Observers say that both cross-border aid and “inside aid” are needed as NGOs at theborder cannot not solve a humanitarian crisis inside Burma while Rangoon-basedNGOs cannot supply aid to villagers and internally displaced persons in conflict zonesin the ethnic areas nor the thousands of refugees on the Thai-Burmese border.Mahn Mahn, the director of the Back Pack Health Worker Team, a relief group thathelps internally displaced persons in ethnic areas, said he does not oppose direct aidinto Rangoon but border-based aid is also necessary.“We agree that aid to Rangoon is needed, but it is also necessary to make sure that aidreaches the hands of the most suffering people in Burma,” he said. “There is muchmore malaria among migrant workers and refugees on the Thai-Burmese border andthey can only be reached and treated by the border-based heath teams.”http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17348
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Chins in dire straits: CSWby Salai Pi Pi Thursday, 03 December 2009 21:32
New Delhi (Mizzima) - People in western Burma’s Chin state are in dire straits,facing chronic food shortage even as they suffer rights violation by the Burmesemilitary regime, the London-based human rights organization, Christian SolidarityWorldwide (CSW), said.In a press release on Wednesday, the CSW said the situation in Chin state, in thethroes of an ongoing food crisis caused by rat infestation, has worsened because of thewidespread human rights violation committed by Burma’s military junta.Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader of CSW, said, “The plight of the Chinpeople of Burma is desperate. They are facing severe poverty, drasticallycompounded by a chronic food shortage and lack of health care, as well as culturalgenocide, religious persecution, rape and forced labour.”The CSW called on the international community including the world largestdemocracy, India, to provide political and humanitarian aid to the people in Burma,particularly in Chin state, to address the country’s political problems andhumanitarian crisis.“It is time for the international community, including India, to act decisively toprovide political and humanitarian support to the people of Burma, including the
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04Dec09: NCGUB: News on Migrants & Refugees- 4 Dec 2009 (English & Burmese)
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