Mekong Youth Net receives Honourable Commendation from UNESCO

Wonderful news for DEPDC/GMS! The results of the 2011 Wenhui Award for Educational Innovation are in! The theme of the 2011 call for nominations was “Education for Learning to Live Together” and we are very pleased and proud to announce that the Mekong Youth Net received an “Honourable Commendation” from the UNESCO. 

The Wenhui Award (文 晖) was established by the National Commission of the People’s Republic of China for UNESCO and the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID).  The Award recognizes those organizations and individuals committed to educational innovation and development. The “Honourable Commendation” provides  great  exposure and promotion for DEPDC/GMS and the Mekong Youth Net throughout Asia and worldwide.  The Mekong Youth Net is honored to receive this recognition for their dedication and hard work in youth leadership and media awareness projects. Congratulations to the MYN!

Many thanks and congratulations are also due to international volunteer Alexandra Wolf, who coordinated the award application, as well as to the recommendation writers whose opinions no doubt influenced the award committee greatly.  Congratulations as well to Ajarn Sompop and Khun Noom for launching and directing this (now award-winning!) innovation.   This level of recognition for the work of the Mekong Youth Net – young people who commit their lives to benefiting their communities – is well-deserved.

To view the profiles of Mekong Youth Net and all other winners posted on the Wenhui website, please visit here. To learn more about the Mekong Youth Net and their innovative educational and media projects, please visit the Child Voice Media projects.

Congratulations to all!

Click here to read more entries about DEPDC/GMS in the News! 

Mekong Youth Leader joins Online Child Protection Experts Round in Bangkok

In late June, our partner Child Protection Partnerships (CPP) organised a showcase event that brought together child protection experts, government officials, law enforcement and students at the Foreign Correspondens Club Thailand in Bangkok. Together, they discussed the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on child sexual exploitation and child protection. The event was supported by CPP’s executing agency, the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), and CPP and DEPDC/GMS’ partner Plan Thailand.

CPP invited P’Mink from the Mekong Youth Net to join the event as a presenter, together with students from a school in Pattaya that runs a programme to teach children how to use the internet safely and responsibly. Read CPP’s report or visit the news section on the CPP website. Click here to visit the Mekong Youth Leaders’ YouthTube Channel and watch a news report in Thai by Channel 7.

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Child Labour Awareness Workshop

Last November, a workshop about child labour was held at the DEPDC/GMS Chiang Khong Centre, led by P’Peh, P’Nui and P’Nuan*, youth leaders of the Mekong Youth Union (MYU). They taught the girls how to recognise, react, and resist situations of child labor, human rights violations, and domestic violence.

“When they can recognise these forms of abuse while they are happening, they can apply this knowledge to real-life situations in the future,” said P’Too, Director of the Chiang Khong Centre.

Through a collaborative effort, the girls brainstormed and created a dramatised skit. With the help of P’Nuan, technician at the MYU Training Centre, it was then recorded for future use on Child Voice Radio.

*In Thai, a P’ is added to people’s names as a form of common courtesy. It is used to address older brothers and sisters as well as older acquaintances. It is common that people of roughly similar ages address each other using P’ in front of the name. The equivalent for younger siblings and friends is Nong.

MYU at the ASEAN Youth Consultation

The Mekong Youth Net (MYN) is an initiative by DEPDC/GMS that established a grassroots network delivering an anti-human trafficking response throughout the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). From August 9-11, MYN youth leaders from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and Vietnam converged to attend the ASEAN Youth Consultation where they were joined by members from the Kayan New Generation Youth and the Colorful Ethnic Youth to brainstorm and share their ideas on ways to improve their communities.

The purpose of the conference was to gather diverse experiences, opinions and perspectives from youth leaders all around the Mekong region. Findings and conclusions would then be presented to the new ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC). The ACWC was inaugurated in April 2010 to focus on issues impacting women and children and to promote women and children’s involvement in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). To learn more about the new committee, please click here.

Drawing from their in-depth community research, intensive networking and outreach, and their comprehensive work for protection from and prevention of human trafficking, the young leaders of the Mekong Youth Union (MYU), the umbrella organisation of the MYN, had plenty to say. They drew on their diverse and hands-on experiences in engaging the most challenging problems facing the Mekong region.

Together, the 74 workshop participants identified the seven most pressing issues that their communities are faced with: human trafficking, illegal drugs, HIV/AIDS, cultural preservation, domestic violence, environmental damage, and statelessness.

However, the youth leaders went one step further than just listing known issues; they also channelled their experiences into proposing creative, sustainable solutions to those serious social problems. In smaller discussion groups, they brainstormed ideas about how they could engage their communities to address these problems.

Their innovative suggestions included the creation of centres in each community to coordinate HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, peer education to prevent substance abuse, and special travel documents that would allow stateless youth to travel to professional conferences.

The many suggestions were compiled in a document that was presented at the October 2010 ACWC Summit, making the youth leaders’ findings and conclusions heard by country representatives and policy makers in the ASEAN region – real youth empowerment in action!

The ASEAN Youth Consultation also sought to highlight and celebrate the diversity of youth throughout the GMS.

The youth leaders took part in the celebration of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People at Chiang Mai University, where – with more than ten ethnic groups represented – they took the opportunity to showcase the music, religion, traditional costumes and culture of their ethnic communities.

It was truly heartening to see through the work and dedication of these young leaders of the MYU and the other, equally enthusiastic youth what great potential there is in the Mekong region. Attendees to the workshop agreed that they enjoyed the sessions and that they all learned a great deal from one another. The model of gathering the perspectives of youth was inspiring to all participants, who hope to pass on their experiences and empowerment to the next generations of young people in their respective countries.

The next ASEAN Youth Consultation is scheduled to be held in Chiang Rai in December, so stay tuned for further news from the Mekong youth leaders.

The ASEAN Youth Consultation workshop was organised and supported by the Southeast Asia Regional Cooperation for Human Development (SEARCH), the Asia Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), our partner Plan International, and DEPDC/GMS.

To visit these organisation, please click on the respective logos below. For a video from the Kayan New Generation Youth, please click here.

Meet the MYN Youth Leaders in Mae Sot

We proudly introduce to you the MYN youth leaders in Mae Sot, Thailand, who are making a difference in their community every day. Let’s find out what they are up to in galvanizing their community against child exploitation!

From 2004 to 2009, the Mekong Youth Net (MYN) has trained 96 young people in their late teens to early 20s to become community leaders all across the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) and to create a network against human trafficking. The idea behind the MYN project was that by recruiting young people from the six GMS countries – Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam and China’s Yunnan Province – and by giving them the education and skill sets necessary, they could return to their respective home countries well-equipped to work with local NGOs and their own communities to effect changes from the most grassroots level. Let’s hear what the MYN team in Mae Sot has to say!

“Sawasdeekha! Mingalapar! Oh su lasai! Greetings from Mae Sot in Thailand. We are a team of four Mekong Youth Net (MYN) youth leaders who graduated from the MYN training curriculum at DEPDC/GMS to work alongside our host NGO, Help without Frontiers, with our local community. All of us used to be students at the Migrant Learning Centre before being recruited by DEPDC/GMS to be part of their MYN programme. We are either Burmese or Karen, one of the ethnic minorities in the region.

“First, let us give you some background on the situation in Mae Sot and why we need a programme like the MYN in the area. Mae Sot is situated in Tak province on the Thai-Burmese border, and a friendship bridge between Mae Sot in Thailand and Myawaddy in Myanmar connects the two countries. There are many migrants from Myanmar in Mae Sot, including Burmese, Karen, Mon, Shan, Lar Hu, Arakanese, Muslin and Chin people. They have been entering Mae Sot illegally in different ways and for different reasons. Some of them fled from the civil war, some came to work and some decided to live in Mae Sot because of social crises, political problems, statelessness, lack of citizenship and economic repression in Myanmar.

“There are many problems affecting migrants in Mae Sot, such as child labour, forced labour, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and substance abuse. In light of the situation, many migrant learning centres were set up to provide access to education for many children who otherwise would not be able to attend school. But children’s rights continue to be violated, and child labour exploitation and child trafficking are rife, representing huge obstacles for the future of children and youth in the region. Therefore, MYN decided to initiate the MYN Mae Sot project to provide education in the community about many of these social issues.

“The objectives of the MYN project in Mae Sot are to help children and young people to understand the different situations and problems in the border area between Myanmar and Thailand, to know how to protect themselves effectively from such problems, to develop their life skills and other knowledges, and to create youth networks to combat human trafficking. Our programmes particularly focus on awareness raising and prevention. We go out to many migrant learning centres to conduct training sessions on Health and Personal Hygiene, Child Rights, Child Labour, Human Trafficking and Substance Abuse. We use a variety of teaching techniques, from skits to question-and-answer contests, to engage our young audience and teach them about the importance of the topics. We work as a team and work very hard, and we are happy to report that in just one year alone, over 2,000 students in total have come from 9 different migrant learning centres to attend our workshops!

“Starting from January 2010, we also began to broadcast a radio programme in three different languages (Burmese, Karen and Thai) to cater to our targeted populations most at risk of exploitation. The radio programme is a very effective way to reach out to a wide audience because for many migrants, the radio is the only media channel they have access to.

“MYN Mae Sot is still a very young project team as we just started operations in August 2009. Along the way, we have faced many difficulties, because the members have still little practical experience in management and communication, and we had to learn how to effectively work together as a team. To this day, MYN Mae Sot is striving to improve our efforts, but we are now more and more confident that we can deliver better work to give back to our own community the very help we received ourselves. We would like to thank our host NGO, Help Without Frontiers, as well as DEPDC/GMS for their continual support and advice whenever we run into difficulties.

“We hope this article gives you a little idea about the work that we do every day, and the kind of challenges that border populations like those in Mae Sot face. If you have any questions, we would be glad to hear from you!”

If you like to contact MYN Mae Sot, please click here to use DEPDC/Interactive. To learn more about the other country projects of the Mekong Youth Net, stay tuned for the upcoming October issue of the DEPDC/GMS Newsletter, which features news from Cambodia, Central Laos and Vietnam.

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Child Voice News Workshop

In late July, a special workshop was held at DEPDC/GMS in Mae Sai for ten youth leaders from the Mekong Youth Net (MYN) in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). The MYN is a group of youth leaders that went through a 3-year training programme initiated by DEPDC/GMS in 2004. It established a network of grassroots anti-trafficking projects throughout the Greater Mekong Sub-region as a link between individuals as well as non-governmental and governmental organisations. The Mekong Youth Union (MYU) is the umbrella organisation of the MYN. It is located in Mae Sai and runs a training centre to further develop the Child Voice Media projects of DEPDC/GMS, namely Child Voice TV, Child Voice Radio and Child Voice News. The workshop consisted of a 3-day intensive programme led by Matthias Lehmann, a German staff member at DEPDC/GMS’ International Department, and translated by Amy, a volunteer from Thailand.

On the first day, the workshop taught the participants how to organise an editorial department. The participants then gathered the topics they would like to feature in the newspaper and were given assignments to prepare for the second day. Among the suggested topics were, to name but a few, the culture and traditions of ethnic groups in the region, health education, the difficulties ethnic minorities face in Myanmar, interviews with staff and children from other NGOs, information about local events and landmarks, introducing people of the local community, as well as information about the mission and activities of DEPDC/GMS.

Throughout Day 2, participants wrote and edited their articles and selected images to go along with them. Afterwards, two models for the structure of the newspaper were developed and discussed. On the third day, participants learnt how to research and choose images to effectively convey a message, how to edit and improve images using an image editor, and how to create newspaper pages using a publishing programme. The third day concluded with participants filling out a questionnaire to evaluate the workshop. All participants stated that they had become more interested in the newspaper project as a result of the workshop and would participate in varying degrees. Everybody welcomed the idea for a second workshop if it were to be offered and preparations for that are already underway.

Let’s hear what Amy has to say about her experience at the workshop. “I was astonished by how hard-working the youth leaders are. Although it seemed like they have a lot on their plates already, they pursued this project with passion. They had so many good ideas about how they are planning to make the newspaper relevant and interesting. They put so much energy into the work that they are doing, which I admire so much. Matthias also did an excellent job teaching them very useful computer skills and they all praised the session about that.”

Matthias observed that he “was impressed how the participants’ motivation accelerated over the three days. It boosted my own motivation and I am already planning the next workshop for the MYN youth leaders, this time led by a team of Thai journalists. It was great to work together with the youth leaders and Amy for three full days and apart from the work we accomplished, I was really glad to get to know all of them better.”

Child Voice News is intended to be published monthly in Thai, with a digest version in English every 3 months, so stay tuned for future updates!

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MYN Seminar with Frank & Becky

The students of the Mekong Youth Net (MYN) are always interested to learn new skills and develop themselves as great leaders. Thus, it was a great experience for them when our supporters Frank and Becky came to visit and carried out a two-day seminar for them to further their understanding of and knowledge about human trafficking. Frank and Becky are originally from Louisiana in the United States but now live in Chiang Mai. Together, they broke down the topic into categories, using a slide presentation. Our staff Lucy, Graziella, Sarah, Lara and P’Coun were present at the meeting alongside Khun Sompop who translated for the MYN students.

Frank and Becky talked about different cases, giving examples of situations they have been involved in or had to deal with, explaining how they overcame the problems and the best ways to correct the matters at hand. A really nice touch was that Frank and Becky sang songs at the end of their seminar. They performed Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s ‘We are the World’ and the magnificent Louis Armstrong ‘What a wonderful world’, as music can speak out to everyone.  

A suprise for everyone was that P’Coun created a sign for Frank and Becky saying “To the world you may just be one person, but to one person you may be the world’, a statement that they made during the seminar. They were extremely delighted at the gift from P’Coun and signed their names on the bottom of it, a perfect ending to a great seminar.

Child Labour Awareness Day

On June 13th, 2008, a group from International Student Volunteers (ISV) joined the MYN 5 group at a gathering to raise awareness about child labour. Together with students from around ten other schools, a big march through Mae Sai began at 1 pm. The rain stayed thankfully away and everyone arrived at the town hall where all the children gathered.

 There were various shows from theatre groups, singers and dancers, and the shows dealt with the topics human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child labour. The main presenters of the day were asking for volunteers to enter the stage for games where they could win prizes. The event finished around 4 pm, and the MYN 5 students really enjoyed the day. It was a great opportunity to be part of the march and the entire event, raising awareness about child labour together and helping vulnerable children.