Steff's Work 2

So this has defiantly been a learning experience for me. One that I was not looking for or had the skills for but I'm trying. My role here has really been to be more of a community developer and a massive scale change agent rather than just a counselor. I came with the expectation that the community was seeking help with their children and improving their understanding of mental health, and they are. However, the process to do this is incredible. It is kind of similar to what it may have been like in the US in the 50's in regards to child rights, when health and life skills classes were first being introduced as important as reading and math classes and finding their way into the schools, increasing the understanding and acceptance of counseling, combating mental health stigma, reducing corporal punishment and route learning etc. Also, the same struggles we have today in schools with sex education and even the psych social groups we have in schools today: like grief support and ethnic or gay pride groups.
It has been difficult to be here and see so many needs and to try SO many things and to really not have too many things actually come to actualization. I wanted an end product, and I have gotten few of those, but mostly what I have done is to be an agent of change. To help move people along a little further than they were when I arrived to help them reach a place where they can accept the help they request and then the hope is they can use some of these suggestions to increase their ability to utilize the next volunteer's time and experience here more effectively.
patience for change has never been my strong suit, but I've been able to think creatively about how to maneuver around road blocks and to use the strengths the community have to address these too. I also of course have met some absolutely wonderful people and love them to death.

One of the biggest barriers I've faced is not having a Burmese counselor involved with me when trying to make these changes. I've tried many strategies for this (trying to help the MTC counseling clinic see the benefit in addressing the community and children's needs, but not much luck with that) instead I asked for a translator, no luck with that either... Ok not to worry I then asked some of the high school students who have shown a huge interest in learning English to come with me and help translate during their summer holiday. Win win situation! yeah...
The boarding house staff are kind of forced to due what MTC clinic ask due to this huge grant the clinic has received to distribute amongst a few choice migrant schools. So there is this really friendly manner I have been received and a really sincere desire to increase awareness of child development, trauma, and helping the children who are having difficulties emotionally and due to disabilities; however, these people are EXTREME over worked and the actual practice of incorporating these ideas are difficult to do for anyone.

The next barriers I have faced is that the schools or boarding houses do not want anything to do with this stuff during their school year. They operate under the assumption that this is extra stuff hat would be good to address, but these kids have to focus on their basics. I am trying to build the understanding that addressing these issues will help the kids learn better to increase the possibility that someday in the future CDC will be able to develop their psych social health curriculum and implement it into their class schedules. In the mean time I am also working on introducing the idea of having a group after school at CDC or on Saturdays at the counseling center for some of the children who have been effected by the cyclone. Unfortunately when April came around, many of the children and staff have gone on holiday to Burma to visit family or other places (understandably it is their summer break). However, this has also put another kink in the plan to do trainings with the staff at the boarding house or to do a lot of activities with the kids, but hey self care is number one, so it's a good barrier.

Besides I have two awesome students from CDC who are helping to transcribe and translate in the boarding houses now!!! Yeah. I buy them lunch (one of the boys lives at a boarding house and only eats one meal a day I discovered) they get to practice

There are issues of child protection (nothing is formally done here and it is mostly just raising awareness at the smaller schools about the need of a child to be protected and to help staff, teachers, and neighbors take ownership for this protection. I have one particular child in mind. He is abused at home by an alcoholic father and asked staff to stay at the boarding house, but his father will not let him. I've been trying to encourage and suggest that the teachers/ boarding house responsibility is to address the father, village leader, and others in the community who can help. (This mind you is done with my lovely Karen family where one adolescent speaks a tiny bit of English. A lot of this stuff has been done over days of having something written and than translated for each other off site).

I've been able to work with World Education and Cope, all funded through Unicef during the last couple months. This has been exciting and fun to see a bigger side of the migrant community. Plus it is a much more organized agency, so it just felt nice to have this difference. For instance this location is just on the edge of town in a gated community in an air conditioned house... I met with Liberty, Mia, and Kelly along with Lou and his wife (Lou helped kind of take me under his wing and steer me in their direction after the difficulties I was having with the counseling center). So I ended up contributing behavioral management ideas to them as an alternative to corporal punishment or other forms I've heard of (making kids pull down their pants and underwear and run around their friends, whipping them for each low mark they got on their report card, or standing and holding a tree for hours-- gives a whole new meaning to tree hugger). I've been able to add this and some other suggestions to their cope training manual they give to all the migrant school teachers along the border.

Most recently I've gotten a little involved with the youth center on the other side of town which houses the adolescent reproductive health center. It is basically community center that also doubles as a family planning facility. I'm mostly acting as a consultant for their curriculum and intimated presenting this information to the boarding houses around MTC.

So the migrant community. Boy, it is a tough one. One of the boarding house masters I was working with just up and left to Burma the other day. Many of the staffing issues at MTC are due to the migrant nature of people .No one plans to stick around for too long. People are trying to relocate. The community has on;y a few options for work opportunities: medic, teacher, another MTC job, store owner, construction, farmer, or factory worker. I'm trying to introduce the idea that they could begin to recent graduated from CDC high school who speak good English and employ them to be translators around the clinic: for the med students, for volunteer, etc. This way they can practice English better, have employment, and can also free up the trained medics or counselors to continue to treat patients. (Often a medic does not speak English well, or if so then the volunteer is not helping much due to two doctors are seeing one patient). The ideal is for these translator to be interested in what ever things they are translating so they are getting double the benefits and eventually could be trained in the other area also.

Most people who have seen change happen have stayed in Mae Sot for years, some have stayed for five years.
This experience has lead me to want more skills in community development and has also lead me to know politics is not fun for me yuck. I like hands on with kids :)