Food Security Myanmar Project #30513

Burmese Refugees: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by DARE Network (Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Education Network)

Burmese Refugees: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Project Report | Oct 17, 2023
Many steps forward and a few back

By Pam Rogers | Capacity Advisor/Addiction Specialist

Signing the land agreement

In 2007 UNHCR, the Thailand Government and countries around the world resettled 80,000 people from the refugee camps on the Thai/Myanmar Border. Since that time, the camps are again full holding well over 100,000 people. Once more, a resettlement program is underway. As last time, the best and the brightest are the first to sign up, which includes many of our DARE Network Addiction Workers. The United States is the destination country.

Alas, not everyone gets to start a new life in a third country and if the Thai Government doesn’t practice refoulement, it is likely the camps will fill again, given the current war in Myanmar and the devastating effect on the people there.

The resettlement of refugees takes time. DARE Network will take this time to ensure that our best and brightest can train the next generation of Addiction Workers, before they leave. We are not sure what will happen to the camps, but we do know that we will endeavor to ensure Mae La Refugee Camp and Mae Ra Moo Refugee Camp and our Karen State Program will continue to provide addiction treatment and prevention education to families in need.

In addition, DARE Network has been successful in obtaining the land for its Migrant Worker program and Moringa Social Enterprise, putting these two projects together for sustainability.

Our next step in response to the coming situation is to build a Training House on our newly acquired land to start to train addiction workers for wherever they are needed. Our goal for 2024 is to build up our capacity in the face of the losses of resettlement, while we wish our workers the very best for their new life in America.

We want to thank everyone who contributed to our Migrantland project on GlobalGiving. Some individuals made extraordinary efforts on behalf of DARE Network because they recognize the potential of our work and appreciate its impact.

Thanks to all who support us and we hope you will continue to do so. It is so helpful in a time where the people of Myanmar have been forgotten once again.

Permalink

Jun 21, 2023
Annual Report

By Pam Rogers | Capacity Advisor/Addiction Specialist

Feb 28, 2023
Pushing Through

By Pam Rogers | Capacity Advisor/Addiction Trainer

The job can get heavy

So far 2023 has been non-stop for all of us at DARE Network. Our teams are all up and running providing the essential work that they do in the refugee camps and at our DARE Centre inside Karen State. Our centres are always full. We have also repaired buildings, rebuilt buildings and acquired falling down abandoned buildings to accommodate the ever-growing demand of people wanting to recover from their addictions.

Meanwhile the brutal and cruel war continues in Myanmar. The Military Junta daily bombs villages, farmers’ fields, schools, temples, mosques and churches killing civilians including children. These are, of course, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Will they ever be held accountable?

The trauma from this war and all the previous oppression will make our DARE Centres overflow. It is very dangerous for us now in Karen State and our plans to expand are on hold. Yet our DARE Team near T’ree Poe K’wee Village bravely continues to offer treatment to anyone who can make it past the checkpoints. We have escape plans at the ready but for now, everyone is safe.

At the home office in Mae Sariang, our plans for MoringAid to which many of you donated last December continue to coalesce. It is the hot, dry season now so for a short period of time the Moringa trees are flowering and giving fruit, like all the trees around. We must wait for the leaves to turn green again. But not long. Our team in Nu Poe refugee camp now wants to plant Moringa trees, as this camp has some land and even a small amount around our DARE Centre. They can harvest and dry the leaves in the camp and our Core Staff can pick it up on our monitoring trips. Of course, they will be trained to do it hygienically, but we know it will be all Organic.

Next report we will send you our financial statements, we are just waiting for the audit to finish.
Thanks to all of you for reading this report and we appreciate any comments you want to make.

DARE Network Team

Links:

Moringa Project

Permalink

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.