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GNA Thailand: Refugee views
Global Needs Assessment, 9 October 2008
"We need soap, pots, clothes, books and a metal roof"
"If possible, we would like very much to have beds for our hospital. Right now we don't have any beds and the patients have to lie on mats on the floor and they even have to bring their own mats, blankets and mosquito nets. We especially want to build a hospital with a metal roof instead of leaves. With a leaf roof we have to repair it once a year, but a metal roof would last longer. We need the road conditions to be improved. The roads are not paved, they are full of holes and in the rainy season you can barely drive on them. In the rainy season it can take eight or nine hours to travel 80 kilometres from Mae La Oon Camp to the hospital in Mae Sariang, the nearest town. We have had patients die on the way because the journey was too long or too rough. We need so many things, if you can think of anything, just help us."
Gu Goo, 30, refugee since 1996 and chief medic at the hospital in Mae Ra Ma Luang Camp run by Malteser International.
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"Our school needs water tanks. Sometimes we don't have enough water for our students' toilets and for drinking water. The latrines become dirty and the smell comes up to the classrooms. When they don't have enough water, the students have to run home and run around looking for drinking water, so this is not a want, this is a real need. We also need a skylight in the thatched roof of our classroom. There is no electricity, so the classroom is a bit dark. We have enough textbooks, but we need library books and reference books, particularly a dictionary and an encyclopaedia in English. An old one would be fine. It would also be great if we could provide lunch for the children at school. They go from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. without anything to eat and in the early afternoon they start to lose concentration."
Thein Than Aye, refugee and headmaster, Number 2 High School, Mae Ra Ma Luang Camp
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"I need clothes for my babies. As you can see, they are running around in shirts with no bottoms. I have a boy two years and eight months old, and another boy 10 months old. Each one only has a few tops. I need a sarong for myself. I am still wearing the same sarong I was wearing when I fled from Burma in the summer of 2007. Until now I am using it. Sometimes we don't have enough food to eat."
Ma Kyi Aye, 24, living in Mae Ra Ma Luang Refugee Camp
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"We need soap. We only get one small bar of soap per family per month and that isn't enough. I'm afraid there could be outbreaks of disease. Some families have a little bit of money and can find a way to buy more, but some can't find money to buy soap for their families."
Gay Ler Say, refugee since 1995 and Secretary of Mae La Oon Refugee Committee, 51, mother of four daughters, was a farmer in Myanmar
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"We don't have enough pots and pans. When they do the distribution, they ask you, do you want a pot or a pan? I need both. I only have one pot for boiling water and one pot for cooking rice and one basin for washing clothes. It's quite hard for me to run my household. Also the charcoal is not enough for cooking. We need more bamboo to renew our houses. It is hard to rebuild the broken parts of our houses. We need many things."
Naw Ku Gay, 38, mother of three children, resident of Mae La Oon Refugee Camp
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