Just because the families have fled their home country to live in Thailand, this does not necessarily mean that the families do not intend on going back. As in any war there are periods of fighting and times when things are quiet. Many of the families therefore return to their homes in Burma during these quiet times to visit with friends and family members that were left behind. They also sometimes attempt to harvest crops on the land that they once owned. This leads to a lifestyle of constant coming and going, which in turn, has a detrimental effect on their children’s education.
In Thailand, the government schools do allow the Karen children to attend, but like any school, they have rules and requirements that must be followed. One of the main and most enforced rules for immigrant children to attend government schools is, as the Thais would say it, “ You cannot come come go go.” This makes perfect sense for a school to enforce such a rule to protect its teachers and its students, but at the same time, it is a demand that is impossible for many of the Karen children to meet. The Forgotten Foundation has therefore set up a school to help provide for the children that are caught in this coming and going trap to reach out and try to give them another chance to pursue their education.
Pastor Manat, Pastor Steven and Wii-Pah are the current teachers at the Forgotten School. The Forgotten School hours are Monday thru Friday from 9:00am-3:00pm. The morning class is from 9:00am-12:00pm and is taught by either Pastor Manat or Wii-Pah. The morning class is targeted more towards pre-school age children and the activities therefore include of things such as singing songs, painting and drawing, reading stories, solving basic math problems and playing games. At noon the children then take a one-hour break where they spend time playing and relaxing at the Forgotten House while Wii-Pah prepares them a warm meal. There is also a volleyball net adjacent to the school for any of the older kids that would like to stay behind and play a sporting activity during the break. At 1:00pm all of the children then return to school for an additional 2 hours. Pastor Steven teaches the evening class and the lessons are designed to teach the children how to read, write and speak in the Thai Language.
In May of 2011 there will be an additional teacher joining the Forgotten School. After discussing with the families their desires for their children’s education, we discovered that it is important to the Karen families to have their children learn how to read and write in their native language. In Burma, the current government has made it illegal for all ethic groups to study in their own native tongue and therefore forces them to learn in both Burmese and English. As a result the Karen people have had little access to receive education in their own native language, which has led to a great decline in literacy of the Karen Language. The Forgotten Foundation has therefore hired a Karen Language teacher that will start at the beginning of the next school year. Her name is Way-Koo-Paw, she is 38 yrs old and she has been a Karen Language teacher in the Mae Lah Refugee Camp for 5 years now. All of the Karen families living at Forgotten are very excited to have her start in May, and many of the families have already requested that their children be included in the activity. We are welcomed and very excited to have Way-Koo-Paw working with us soon!
