DEAR Burma Students
Teaching English in Bangkok is a great way to volunteer. DEAR Burma is a project dedicated to helping Burmese refugees and is one of the many programs run by TACDB. The students are extremely motivated and grateful for the opportunity to learn English. Classes are held throughout the day at a Thai public school near Ratchathewi BTS Station.
Zoe Matthews has been involved with DEAR Burma for some time and has contributed this article.
After 4 or so years living up the proverbial Bangkok high life, of burning candles at both ends, working hard as an EFL teacher and squeezing as much playtime around work as I could possibly muster, I found myself as I tended to be at the end of every candle – wondering if I should be doing something more useful with my life. I had always flattered myself since university days that I could one day end up in Africa or South America, or some other far removed place from where I was, working with some humanitarian organization on the frontline battling human hardship and strife. Why did the opportunities to do that always seem like they existed in a different galaxy to my own? I needed look no further than my own doorstep to see that there were people in need of a helping hand.
Lucky for me, I had worldly wise friends who knew better. What flipped the switch I’m still not sure but the day that I expressed interest in joining my friend’s cause was the day that would give my whole perspective on life an irreversible facelift.
So there I was pacing up and down the rows of students in a fourth floor classroom at the DEAR Burma school, doggy-paddling in the face of the needs of an entirely different style of English language learner. An English language learner from a different country after so long: I’d become so used to the needs of Thai speakers learning English at that point that I was spun into a state of panic, all parts of me focused on upgrading my usual tried and tested repertoire of techniques in order to meet the needs of a variety of language speakers (the students are mainly Burmese-speaking but often hail from different divisions and states, like Karen or Mon state for example). And an English language learner I knew nothing about. How could I have been so ill-informed about a country that neighboured Thailand and how was I ever going to make my classes interesting and relevant for my students?
I was grateful to the students for making things easy on me. Their warm, gracious smiles and insatiable eagerness to learn instantly made me want to make every moment in that classroom a meaningful one for them. As each Sunday flew by, I would learn more and more about the beautiful, cultural hotpot of ethnicities that is Burma, and about its current situation. And I would also learn about the lives of the thousands of migrants and refugees that cross the Thai border everyday to find a new life or make a decent wage to send back to their families. I wanted to do more to help.
DEAR Burma itself is a perfect place to do more. In its best days before the downturn in the economy and the political situation in Thailand, it boasted 600 students in attendance and was becoming increasingly popular as a place for migrants from Burma to develop their Thai and English language skills, learn the basics of computing, browse a library of Burmese, English and Thai books run by a student committee, cultivate and nurture the desire to learn more. In fact, it still thrives as that place and one for migrants from Burma to congregate, or feel a spirit of solidarity, with a community of people from similar backgrounds and with similar experience to their own, regardless of their ethnicity. For one day a week, and for a lot of the students, the only day they have off work as a domestic or factory worker, or sometimes as a tailor or waitress.
And if the students weren’t in themselves inspiring enough, they are also responsible for the setting up of a committee that organized and distributed donations for the victims of Cyclone Nargis, as well as for ‘spreading the love’ into other communities of migrants from Burma living around Bangkok, sending out students who have reached a level of fluency in Thai in order to teach others. Others have gone on to win scholarships and to further their studies at universities in Thailand and overseas. The list of DEAR Burma’s students’ achievements goes on, but that does not mean there isn’t anything left to do to help.
So how can you help? Well, by providing 2 hours of your time every, or every other Sunday, for starters. Usually the English language program is the one starved of dedicated volunteer teachers and if you are ready to commit for at least a semester (of three months)and you enjoy a challenge (especially those who are not trained as teachers: it’s a preference but not compulsory) then this could be the ideal spot for you to start helping. Things are fairly flexible for the teachers: the course materials and supplementary activities are ready for you to prepare before your class at the school (3-5pm for the higher levels), co-teaching* is definitely not a problem (in fact, probably necessary if you have a hectic weekly work schedule already) and you are your own boss as long as the students are prepared for the end of term exams and as long as you remember that you have a responsibility as their teacher.
DEAR Burma has done and is still doing its best to provide its students with the tools they need to better integrate into the Thai community, find a comfortable life for themselves and their families, further their education and protect themselves from exploitation and abuse. I know that I have been proud and still am to have been a part of its efforts.
If you would like to help, contact the English Program Coordinator, Zarni, at uznn2002@hotmail.com, or the Director of the school, Myint Wai at tacdb@truemail.co.th
*Co-teaching means that you and your teaching partner get together at the beginning of the semester after the teacher’s meeting and figure out what your schedules look like: In most cases, the arrangement tends to be that your teaching partner takes one week and you take the next so you are not committed to being at school every weekend.
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