Karen Refugee Committee
The Karen Refugee Committee (KRC) is the peak Karen refugee body in Thailand and has provided detailed monthly reports on its activities since 1984. The first typewritten report in December of that year recorded the receipt and distribution of humanitarian aid in the form of mainly rain and fish paste which were distributed to more than 9,000 people from Karen/Kayin State in six border locations.
A number of refugees had returned home to plant rice, according to the report. At that time, most refugees thought that their stay in Thailand would be short and that they would soon return to their home villages, but events in Burma/Myanmar were to dash those early hopes. The reports are available at the Online Burma/Myanmar Library.
Karen Environmental and Social Action Network
Decades of war and conflict have impoverished many parts of Karen/Kayin State. Yet the state is rich in local culture and in natural resources such as rivers, forests, agricultural land and biodiversity. The Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) is a civil society organisation that works to find solutions to challenges related community development, land and the environment following decades of war and conflict. The group has produced a wide variety of related reports, manuals and videos.
For example, the value of indigenous knowledge and traditions and the need for a pro-people land policy as well as protection of the environment are among the complex issues highlighted in a 2017 Kesan video on a Karen community forest. Manuals on herbal medicines and agriculture practices and environmental guidelines are other information resources that point the way towards the group’s vision of sustainable development in Karen State.
Karen Human Rights Group
More than twenty years of research, reports, data, images and videos shedding light on the human rights situation and the challenges faced by villagers and civilians in conflict-affected parts of Karen/Kayin State and other areas are available on the website of the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG). The group’s detailed research and documentation over two decades has helped provide extraordinary insights into the challenges, injustices and difficulties experienced by ordinary people in conflict situations, and the many ways they have sought to survive and find solutions.
Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand
The Committee for Coordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand (CCSDPT) was formed in 1975 as a communications network for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with the displaced in Thailand. At its largest, in 1981, the group’s membership included 52 agencies serving refugees from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
In mid-2017 it has 15 member organisations which work mainly in a variety of sectors in the nine camps for refugees from Burma/Myanmar.
Resources on the group’s website include links to all the members’ websites and information such as the CCSDPT-UNHCR Strategic Framework for Durable Solutions (November 2013: Version 5), and Standards and Principles in Voluntary Repatriation from Thailand to Myanmar.
UN Organisations
The Thailand offices of the International Organisation on Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Refugee Organisation (UNHCR) have conducted programmes and provided support to refugees in Thailand for many years and related resources can be found on their websites.
Myanmar Information Management Unit
The Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU) is a service providing key data and information and analysis to humanitarian actors in Burma/Myanmar. It provides a variety of data on southeast Myanmar, including information on the current situation, meetings and presentations, maps, and reports and publications from different organisations.