ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရာက္ ေရာင္နီဦးေက်ာင္းသူ

မိုဘီဂျီနို နဲ့ ဟိုတယ်ပညာရှာသူ

How NGSO students at (YNO)School send the donation

NGSO committee meeting

This past year, the New Generation Students’ Organisation of Yaung Ni Oo School in Mae La Oon refugee camp has received support from Sundorne School, UK and Mrs Diane Olston, Australia.

We met with NGSO students and they explained how they organized their fundraising event at Christmas (2010), how they used the money that was donated, and their plans for rest of the year’s activities.

Firstly, NGSO organized a students’ party and sports fair with football, badminton, volleyball and Tauk Si Doe (Burmese traditional game). They gave prizes for the 1^st and 2^nd winners. They sold Mohinga noodle soup, fried noodles, fried gourd, Rakhaing traditional noodle, fried Shan tofu and noodle salad, and they and arranged some games for fundraising. They also showed video, and ask for a small fees.

They prepared a dinner party for Yaung Ni Oo’s teachers. The money that was raised during the event was donated to elderly people in the camp. They created a small fund for students who need to be sent to hospital in emergency.   They also buy some materials for school from their fund.

They bought 29 inch-TV and produced “Aye Chan thaw Kaung Kin” newsletter. The newsletter is published in two languages: Karen and Burmese. They will publish 50 newsletters and it will cost 10000 baht. In this newsletter, they wrote poems, stories, cartoons and article about their experiences and their feelings about their lives. They can express their feelings by words. Producing this newsletter is an opportunity to practice their writing skill. Everyone can know about their lives by reading this newsletter. They gave the left-over money to NGSO’s cashier to keep for activities later in the year.

Students said they wanted to do Christmas party and funs fair every year, like the one they did last year, thanks to Sundorne’s donation. They wanted to organize speech practice for Yaung Ni Oo’s students to promote intellectual skills and self-confidence once a year. They also wanted to do sport fair twice a year to keep students healthy. They wanted to publish “Aye Chan Tat Kaung Kin” newsletter every year to improve their writing skill and to let everyone know about their lives and their feelings. They wanted to hold an easy writing competition in Burmese for YNO’s secondary students twice a year.

Students thanked Sundorne school and Mrs Olston who donated money and books to them and very much appreciated that people had preferred to support them, YNO students, rather than use the money for their own needs. Students admired benefactor’s wish to help other people. They wanted to give them “Aye Chan Tat Kaung Kin” newsletter as a present but it is only written in Burmese and Karen.

NGSO @ YNO

Karen New Year in Mae La Oon refugee camp

Shorthly before Christmas, Karen new year festival took place. As we mentioned 

in a previous post, there are many new years, as many as there are ethnic peoples. 

The dates vary and they are usually based on the lunar calendar. Here in Thailand 

were 3 weeks away from Songkran, the theravada boudhist new year, celebrated 

in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. But i'm getting carried away...!

To celebrate Karen New year, dance groups rehearse and perform the 

Dawn Dance. The "Dawn Dance" (nothing to do with dawn, it means New Year) 

are performed by boys and grils, men and women. Actually the dancers sing and 

dance at the same time, while drummers play. One must be pretty fit to finish a 

complete song because the dances are fairly energetic. The songs are happy and 

very catching, the dancers dress up in traditional clothing, proud to continue their 

cultural heritage.

On the day, people gathered from all around the camp. Some people have to walk for an

hours to reach the festival grounds. The drum and the buffalo horns you can see on the gate are the emblems of Karen people, the sunrising is part of the Karen flag.

It means a lot for Sunrise school students to perform for the New Year festival because they can be shuned by other schools for learning in a schools that uses Burmese as the teaching language. By performing the Dawn dance, they show their love of Karen culture and assert thier identity as Karen youth.

Yaung Nii Oo student did a wonderful performance that night, demonstrating that the new generations will continue to care fro Karen traditions and arts.
New Year In MLO camp