- Background of New Road Learning Center
Mae Ramat, north of Mae Sot, is home to more than 10,000 migrant workers from Myanmar. Many of them have brought their families and therefore children along with them. The children usually end up working together with their parents as child workers. There have been numerous attempts by various non-profit organizations to establish a school in the region to mitigate this situation. However, none of them have lasted very long.
When this problem first arose, U Kyaw Kyaw who was living in the region was concerned about the future of these children and wondered what he could do to improve the situation. He was close to returning to his home country of Myanmar when a couple living next to him asked for help to teach their children some basic education. U Kyaw Kyaw decided to help teach the children. News of his activities spread by word of mouth across the region, and within a few months the total number of students rose to 80. Therefore, U Kyaw Kyaw decided to establish New Road Learning Centre officially on 2008.
In 2015, Help Without Frontiers (HWF) organization began supporting the school fully. But starting from 2017, it cut its support by 10%, then in 2018, by 20%, afterwards in 2019, by 30%. One reason was the increasing expense of the school as it grew bigger with each passing year. In 2020 HWF finally ended all support completely. The loss of support caused a lot of problems for children who were preparing to take part in the Matriculation Exams in that year.
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the military coup in Myanmar in 2021 had a serious ripple effect on at New Road Learning Center as well as on the entire migrant education community. Older youth who began studying at New Road in 2009 are now all stranded and uncertain about their future since they cannot partake in the Matriculation Exams as the borders are closed due to the pandemic, and schools inside Myanmar are not operational due to subsequent civil conflict after the coup. To help them for using of their free time and focus on the future, the headmaster has encouraged students to take the General Education Development (GED) course during the difficult time.
- Land and School Building Situation
In 2021, the disagreements between the landowner family and the teachers have also created problem for the Head Techer to continue to run the school in that area. The problem was the landowner chose not to renew the land rent contract which would be due in 31.12.2021. Due to the landowner was not agree to extend the land contract, even though the school has received funds from International Organization for Migration (IOM)/FRY for 2022-2023 school year to carry out vocational training at the school, the headmaster is worried about how to continue operating the school in the coming years.
During the Covid-19 and School could not extend the land contract, teachers performed the Home-Based Learning for the students. They gathered the students in communities, they provided the lessons for the students. There were many challenges for the teachers to perform the Home-Based Learning to the students because teachers have to go many places. However, the students got to learn at least somethings through Home-Based Learning.
According to the Head Teacher, New Road got the new land that they build the school building. For now, they just made annually contract with the landowner because they do not have fund to rent the land for many years. They plan to made the contract with landowner for 5 years to 10 years when they have enough funding. For the school building, they got the donor who will build the school building for them. Currently, they are in the process of planning the school building. Hopefully, New Road will get the school building/classrooms in June 2023. So that they can use the classroom and bring back the student to the center and students can study safely and happily.
- The Statement of Needs
In the Mae JorLor area, there many migrant families working the farm and there are many children with their family. New Road Learning Center is very important for those children. However, without the donor supporting, it will be very difficult for the teachers to run and operate the school. In order to run and operate the New Road Learning Center smoothly, they need the support and funding from the donors. Therefore, they kindly would like to request the funding for the donor to support the New Road Learning Center. The expenditure that New Road would like to request are the below.
- Salaries: When teachers receive the salaries, it gave the teachers strength and it made them happy and they can use in their daily needs or for their family.
- School Land Rent: Renting the land is very important. So, school have to make sure that, they have school land rent fee every year.
- Transportation: Some of the students stay away from school. So, students can get to the school safely is very important.
- School Operation Cost: The school operation costs are very important to run school because school need every month.