School recruitment in Karenni Camp 1

School recruitment in Karenni Camp 1

During the summer season, schools in Karenni Refugee Camp 1 recruit their new students. These schools include our SDC. We have now successfully recruited our new classes for the 2015 – 2016 Basic Course and the 6th Advanced Community Management Training Course. We have 51 students ready to begin the SDC Basic Course and 20 Students preparing to start the Advanced Course.   Our SDC staff have all been very busy in the past month with recruitment and preparation for the new school year. Both groups of students have experienced an interview and entrance exam. After the interviews and entrance exams, our staff began the difficult task of selecting the students. For the basic course, we selected 28 women and 23 men. For the advanced course, we selected 10 women and 10 men.   For the basic course, we interviewed and selected from students who had completed grade 10 in the refugee camp or inside Burma. For the advanced course, we selected from our...
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SDC succesfully completes the 2015 Summer Course

SDC succesfully completes the 2015 Summer Course

Our summer course has been successfully completed. A total of 45 students participated in the one month special English training. This year’s summer course ran from the 20th April until the 19th May. We are proud to have seen all of our students make solid progress with their English. These skills will help them in studying our own advanced Course or will provide them with the ability  to access further education elsewhere. This year’s course saw students overcome the challenge of the fire in the Camp to continue their education. During the course, students were taught in classes of 12 giving them a lot of opportunity to learn directly from their teachers. The lessons rotated from speaking and listening focused to reading and writing focused.  We separated the groups into A—D based on their English ability. This gave all of the students ample opportunity to fine tune their English skills. Our special English course is only in its third year, now. The reason we...
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Staff Profile: Khu Myar Reh, Principal

Staff Profile: Khu Myar Reh, Principal

Q/ Can you tell me about your background? I am Karenni. I was born in Karenni State. Because of the political unrest in Burma as well as human rights violation practiced by the military government and their allied military groups, I fled my village to Karenni Refugee Camp in 2003.     I finished my grade ten in 1988 in Burma. After this, I finished my distance university in 1995 in Taungyi, Shan state of Burma. Before arriving in the refugee camp, I used to be a teacher for over 10 years in Karenni State. I arrived in Karenni refugee camp #1 in 2003 and had worked as a teacher at high school for 4 years in Karenni refugee camp #1 before I continued my schooling in EarthRights. I graduated EarthRights School Burma (ERS) in 2007. Since completing this course, I have been working at the SDC until this day.   Q/ What has been your role at SDC over the years? I started my work at...
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The armed groups within Burma crawl closer to an NCA

The armed groups within Burma crawl closer to an NCA

The various armed ethnic groups within Burma appear to be moving closer to a nationwide ceasefire agreement with the Burmese government. On 31st March, the Burmese government and 16 ethnic armed groups agreed in principle to the draft Nationwide Ceasefire agreement. Some have acclaimed this agreement as a precursor to peace but others believe this draft agreement is being over emphasized and that it is only a small step towards peace.   All of the ethnic people know well that much has to be done before a genuine and long lasting peace can be achieved. For the Karenni people, it has been a long wait for a long lasting peace. The conflict in Karenni State has been ongoing for over 60 years and there has only been a Burmese government and KNPP ceasefire since 2012.   The KNPP wish to participate in nationwide ceasefire talks before moving on to peace talks with the Burmese government. The KNPP and other ethnic armed groups have joined...
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SDC runs a three day staff media training

SDC runs a three day staff media training

Every summer, here at SDC, we look to build our capacity for change. In order to increase our staff skills, we have just completed a three-day training course. The aim of the course was to build the multimedia capacity of our staff. We hope that after this training all of our staff will be able to take and produce high quality photography and videos. For three days, between April the 16th and 18th, we ran a workshop to provide effective instruction and practical guidance in the art of photography and video. The workshop was provided by volunteers and the participants were all SDC staff and alumni. The first part of the workshop taught how to take and edit quality photos. The trainers introduced some photography methodology. After this, staff practiced taking photos of people, our school and our environment. Finally, they used a video enhancement program to improve the quality of their photos. The second part of our workshop was focused on videos....
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About our Karenni language and literacy

Last month at a linguistics conference in Yangon, experts called for multilingual education to be made a priority. Here at SDC, we would like to provide our supporters with some background of the history of our Karenni language. The Karenni language has a long history as a spoken language. It is known by many names. It can be called Western Red Karen, Karenni or KayahLi. Kayah refers to the largest ethnic group in Karenni State as well as the language. This language is part of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic family. This is the native tongue of the majority of people in Karenni Refugee Camp 1. It is estimated that there are over 100,000 speakers of KayahLi. The language is spoken in Mae Hong Son province of Thailand and Kayah State, Burma. Many Kayah speakers are now dispersed across a number of countries including Australia, New Zealand, Finland and The U.S.A. There are three different alphabets for KayahLi. The first two are based on Burmese...
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Klaw Meh’s story

Klaw Meh’s story

My name is Klaw Meh. I come from Karenni State, Shadaw Township. I was born in 1995. I came to camp in 1995. I live in refugee camp 1. I came to Karenni Refugee Camp 1 together with my family. I live with my parents. I get food from the Thai Border Consortium (TBC). My parents don't have jobs. My life was poor. I left because of war.   I grew up in camp. I started school at age 3 years old in the nursery school. I went to primary school, middle school No2 and high school. I studied with friends then I played football. When I went to school, I went to study science, maths, history, English and Thai. I was happy with my friends and teachers. I was interested in SDC school because I wanted to know about human rights, rule of law, environment, and democracy. These subjects are important because I want to empower our Karenni people.   I have studied...
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Maung Nyein’s Story

Maung Nyein’s Story

My name is Maung Nyein. I come from Karenni State. When I lived in Karenni State, I had seen in the village fighting with Burmese soldiers and Karenni armies. Burmese soldiers came into my village and caused persecution. My life was very unsafe. My family was very poor. My mother went to farm in the field. I studied until grade 7 school because in my community to attend school, it costs a lot of money. I lived with my mother. My parents worked on the fields. I remember many scary things that happened. There were Burmese soldiers in my village. They persecuted our people. I remember forever why I left and about the Burmese soldiers.     Once I got to camp #1, I went to high school. I was 17 years old. I was a student in high school class B. My high school class group was called vegetable. I felt happy. I applied to SDC school because of my interest in...
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