The Situation in the North

The area between the city of Chiang Mai and the border to Myanmar is inhabited by – besides Thai people – different ethnic groups, e.g. Akha, Lisu, Lahu, Hmong, Karen and refugees, with different languages and often without proper citizenship and related legal documents. The ethnic minorities and refuges are often marginalized and extremely poor. Only a few of their children attend schools (it is estimated that approximately 1 million school-age children do not attend school). HIV/AIDS is the other key challenge besides the low or non-existing enrolment ratio of ethnic minority and otherwise disadvantaged groups leaving many children as orphans. Other children have simply been neglected or not at all taken care of by their relatives.

Child labor is a wide-spread issue, as is child trafficking. The area in question was one of the main locations of the “drug war” of the Thaksin Government during which around 2.500 people were killed.

Among the key problems of this area are:

• Extreme poverty, especially among the hill tribes
• Unemployment or under-employment within the current subsistence economy
• Drug trafficking with inflows mainly from neighboring Myanmar
• Non-sustainable agriculture, namely the destruction of forestry through slash & burn
• Corruption
• Prostitution and HIV/AIDS
• Insufficient access to any health care.

Within this socio-economic setting, many children and their relatives are forced to make a living through begging, stealing, child labor, searching for food in garbage bins and prostitution.

Prior to the start of the School for Life in Chiang Mai, the project leadership had organized and implemented a 2-year pilot phase including social research in the vicinity of the school and discussion with representatives from local communities, ethnic groups, NGO’s, education and social authorities and the participation in community development activities.

Tsunami - The Situation in the South

Immediately after the tsunami catastrophe the School for Life received a call for help from Namkem, a poverty stricken village which was nearly completely obliterated just north of Khao Lak. After improvisation, a new ‘School for Life under the tree’ was created a few weeks after the catastrophe. It was mainly there for trauma recovery and the bonding for a new strengthened community.

The School for Life was recommended by the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and so it came to be that another School for Life was developed for about 180 children and 40 adults: The Beluga School for Life in Na Nai which is being financed by Beluga gGmbH in Bremen/Germany and is secured for ten years.

The School for Life in Chiang Mai has also taken in a group of children and adults from the tsunami-affected south. This group had visited Chiang Mai to participate on a summer camp together with the children and adults there. They decided then to stay in Chiang Mai for a year. A part of the group returned to the south in April 2006 to the newly established Beluga School for Life, while the other part of the group decided to stay longer in Chiang Mai.