In early December, Glocal Action, an NGO devoted to Thai–Myan­mar border issues, celebrated its first anniversary. At the start of the festivities, Glocal Action’s deputy secretary-general Sam Lai stood up and greeted participants in Thai, Burmese and Karen.

Glocal Action founders Yvonne ­Huang, Sam Lai and Wang Shih-ling had on different occasions spent time in Mae Sot involved in international assistance efforts. Their experiences there made a deep impression on them and prompted them to found Glocal Action at the end of 2014. Ever since, they’ve come back to Mae Sot time and again to help the people of the Thai border area.

Glocal Action’s deputy secretary-general Sam Lai (left), planning manager Wang Shih-ling (center) and intern Liao Yuan-yu (right) are concerned about a variety of issues in the Thai–Myanmar border region.

Arm in arm with locals

“Think Global, Act Local,” proclaims Glocal Action on its Internet homepage. Glocal Action focuses on working with local partners. In 2015 it joined with the Tak Border Child Assistance Foundation (TBCAF) to carry out teacher training among the area’s tribal peoples.

Lai explains that apart from playing host to a large number of refugees, the border region is also home to many Thai tribal peoples, who likewise need assistance. Currently, Glocal Action is aiming to help the Karen, who live in remote areas of Thailand’s mountains.

Three elementary schools in Karen areas are the targets of Glocal Action’s assistance. For many years, cars and trucks couldn’t even reach those villages, so they lacked schools, teachers and educational resources. Most villagers who are middle-aged and older never went to school at all. Although the younger generation were able to come down from the mountains to attend school, they face widespread discrimination. To assimilate, Karen youths have had to deliberately hide their accents and mountain heritage, desperately trying to erase any trace of their hometowns. In many respects their experiences mirror what Taiwan’s Aborigines went through in an earlier era.

In the 1990s the Thai government made a push to provide education in remote rural villages by establishing branch schools in the mountains. Yet appreciation of traditional tribal culture proved challenging. “The ethnic Thai teachers assigned to the mountains didn’t speak Karen or understand traditional culture. How could they be expected to teach well?”

Seeing traditional culture continually slipping away, the Karen leader Pi Wati established TBCAF in 2005. The organization works with young people to improve life in the tribal villages and help with primary education. Pi Wati, who had long worked on international assistance plans with Sam Lai, is cooperating with Glocal Action this year in developing a teacher training program. With Glocal Action’s financial assistance, TBCAF has been able to provide training for teachers at three elementary schools, including one in the village of Sor Kae Kla.

Apart from providing financial assistance for tribal teachers, TBCAF also regularly holds teacher training workshops to which it invites young teachers from tribal groups. A workshop held in November offered training to 12 young teachers from nine schools and gave them an opportunity to share their experiences. Glocal Action has sent its locally based intern Liao Yuan-yu to observe classes but otherwise has given full responsibility for the program to its local partner TBCAF.

After arriving at school, the tribal children salute the rising flag, sing Buddhist songs, and bow to the Buddha. Only then do they begin their studies.

Schools for undocumented migrant workers

The same principles govern Glocal Action’s effort to provide assistance to elementary schools for the children of Myan­mar migrant workers in Mae Sot. Sam Lai explains that because of political turmoil and a difficult economic environment in Myan­mar, every year large numbers of workers from Myan­mar move to the Mae Sot area to look for work opportunities.

Without resident visas, these workers from Myan­mar must provide their own schools to educate their children. According to the Burmese Migrant Workers’ Education Committee (BMWEC), Mae Sot once had as many as 70–80 elementary schools devoted to teaching the children of workers from Myanmar.

The Green Water Migrant School at the southern edge of Mae Sot is one of the elementary schools Glocal Action sponsors. Winding through the muddy street, you come to a simple one-room adobe-brick schoolhouse next to some fields. Schoolmaster Ko Ko Zaw stands by the door, welcoming his visitors.

Ko is a graduate of the University of ­Yangon, but in 2005, amid political turmoil in Myan­mar and finding it difficult to make ends meet, he decided to cross the border to Thailand to seek employment. In Mae Sot he discovered that quite a few of the children of Myan­mar migrant workers weren’t going to school because they couldn’t pay tuition. As a college graduate, Ko deeply understood the importance of an education. Consequently, he quit his job, sought funding, built a simple one-room schoolhouse and began to operate the Green Water Migrant School.

Lai first met Ko Ko Zaw in 2007. Dark-complexioned, lean and small, Ko is a skilled artist with a remarkable ability to capture a person’s image with just a few strokes of a pen. Several times, he surprised and delighted Lai with cartoons he had spontaneously drawn. When Lai returned to Mae Sot in 2015 he was once again surprised and delighted to find that the Green Water Migrant School was still going strong. Lai found his old friend’s perseverance moving. Consequently, the school was one of the first targets of Glocal Action’s support after its founding.

Apart from providing financial help to a number of schools for Myan­mar migrant workers’ children, Glocal Action has also worked with BMWEC to sponsor teacher training. Lai explains that most of these schools have poor teachers who lack proper training and certification. Their professional expertise comes entirely from experience and self study.

Consequently, Glocal Action and the BMWEC have promoted teacher training programs. In June of 2015 they sponsored teacher training workshops, attracting some teachers from Myan­mar to cross the border just to enroll in the program.

A migrant worker father from Myanmar in Thailand attentively watches his child doing schoolwork.

Experience plants seeds of action

Apart from joining hands with local partners, Glocal Action has also organized public-interest travel tours, leading Taiwan’s public to experience for themselves the border region in the hope of planting seeds of action in those taking the tours.

With a friend’s introduction, ­Zhang Yi-ming participated in two public-interest travel tours and became a Glocal Action volunteer. It was thanks to a trip to the border region that he gathered the courage to pursue his dreams. ­Zhang explains that it had been hard in Taiwan to dream big. On a trip to Mae Sot, ­Zhang witnessed how the Myan­mar refugees and migrant workers in the mountains worked so hard to make ends meet and help their families. He found their toughness and determination inspiring.

After taking several tours and becoming a Glocal Action tour guide, Yin ­Hsiang-chen developed an unmistakable bond of fate with the border region. The public-interest tour she took in 2014 left a deep impression on her, and in early 2015 she brought together some friends and once again traveled to Mae Sot, where she became one of Glocal Action’s dedicated volunteers.

“Coming to a border region is a way of getting a glimpse of the true face of magic,” says Lai. When young, he served as a volunteer in Taiwan before coming to Thailand in 2003 to deliver foreign aid. Then he went to St. Lucia in the Carribean to help refugees there. Whenever he describes his stories of going abroad on relief efforts, he always gets asked: “What has motivated you to want to participate in international assistance efforts?”

Slight of build, well tanned and wearing a baseball cap, Lai usually responds the same way regardless of the setting: “We think that we participate in international assistance efforts to help others. Little do we know that those benefitting most are ourselves. It is only by deep involvement overseas that we can gain the international perspective needed to give back to our homeland and improve life here.”

After many years Lai and his Glocal Action colleagues returned to Mae Sot. As far as he is concerned, “A place that was foreign became my homeland.” He gives the border area around Mae Sot the highest of compliments: “I have two homelands. The first is Taiwan, which shaped who I am. And my other home is Mae Sot. The people and events that I’ve encountered there have made me a better person.”

With a lack of classrooms and teachers, schools for Myanmar migrant worker families often feature classes filled with students of mixed ages.