Fr. Frank Bird:

I am a Marist priest of the Society of Mary and my congregation is a member of Misean Cara. I have been director of the Marist Asia Foundation for the past few years. We are extremely grateful to Irish Aid, through Misean Cara, for supporting our Burmese migrant secondary education programme in southern Thailand on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

I will give some context. In the south of Thailand, we are in what is called a migrant corridor. From the bottom of Myanmar, we take a boat for 20 minutes and then travel into Ranong, a fishing town. We have the highest density of Burmese migrants in Thailand. Many migrants and their children work in fish factories, charcoal factories and construction, which are typically the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs of migrants. To give some context with numbers, an estimated 80% of migrant children do not go to school. Of the 20% that do, 80% leave at age 12. This simply continues the cycle of poverty, oppression and desperation for Myanmar migrant families in Thailand.

Many migrant children do not have documents. Poor Burmese migrant families are desperate to survive and make their children go to work as soon as their bodies are big enough, which is often around the age of 12. Discrimination between Thai and Burmese causes many restrictions to entry into the Thai Government school system. Myanmar migrant children lack the Thai language, which means if they do get into Thai schools many of them drop out. We identified five significant problems. We recognise the need for access to inclusive, quality, accredited and sustainable education. With the help of Misean Cara, we were able to develop a Burmese language, Thai language and English language pathway, creating access to a secondary education and creating a quality and recognized curriculum, and we promoted teacher education pathways so that migrants can become teachers and leaders for their own community.

We have built a centre with the support of Misean Cara, which now has 250 students and, amazingly, a retention rate for migrant children of more than 85% each year. We now have graduates working in the United Nations, World Vision, Save the Children, the International Organization for Migration, the Fishers Rights Network and other civil society organisations. We recognised that primary education is not enough; it does not solve enough problems. Migrants need secondary education so they can become leaders and teachers and can access higher education.

We have what we call a fragile learning context on the border between Myanmar and Thailand and their two systems. We have developed a three-language programme and we are now integrated into the Thailand Ministry of Education's non-formal education programme. Our goal is not just education, but also leadership and development of the local community. We are not in an emergency problem or a migrant problem. We are in the midst of a community with great needs. As missionaries, we can walk in different worlds and different cultures. We are seen as bridge-builders and problem-solvers. By living among the people in the long term, we have developed trust and collaboration.

We recognise that we cannot solve all the problems of international migration, or the migrant problems for the Burmese, but we can offer them an education so that they can solve their problems. We recognise that education is the greatest gift we can give to migrants, refugees and displaced peoples. I thank the members of the committee for their time and support.