
In August this year, Room to Grow received a request for assistance from Ler Doh dormitory, in Mae La Refugee Camp. The dormitory houses 59 students, most of whom left their families inside Burma to seek and education and is in the second year of operations.
The dormitory was originally set up as an ‘emergency dormitory’ for students who had no family or friends to stay with in the camp. For the most part the students come from Burma, in Karen state. While the students’ educational and economic backgrounds are quite varied, they are all committed to education. Initially, it was thought that only thirty students would come, however the number increased to fifty, and this year there are 59 students.
The boarding house was experiencing an unusually high number of malaria and dengue fever cases among the students in June and July. Both diseases are mosquito-born and can be easily prevented by sleeping under mosquito nets. Unfortunately, mosquito nets were something the dormitory didn’t have and couldn’t afford.
The dormitory was also in need of blankets for the children staying there, and we were able to provide funds for those also. This is a message from the caregiver at Ler Doh Dormitory:
“The students are ever so grateful for these materials. In particular the mosquito nets provide much needed prevention from malaria and dengue fever. Reports for August tell us that all students are healthy.”
The students at Ler Doh dorm would like to say a big Thank You everyone who supports Room to Grow from their cozy blankets, under their safe mosquito nets. We, in turn, would like to wish them good health and good luck on their upcoming exams!
Photofriend is a project in which we give boarding house children digital cameras and ask them to take photographs. The children then use the photographs to tell us about what life is like as a separated or orphaned child living in a refugee camp. This year we’d like to expand the program to work with some boarding houses in the migrant community as well as in the refugee camp. Unfortunately we only have six cameras from our previous project, run in 2007.
The sun was hot and my hands were aching as I carried another bucket of cement from the mixing area to the foundations of the new girl’s dormitory building. Six children from the boarding house met me at the foundations, eagerly taking the buckets from my hands to do the most exciting job in their eyes, actually pouring the cement. I took the empty buckets from their hands and went back for another refill.
still. They climbed the trees and searched for long poles to knock the fruit from the branches. The entire day I worked with them, they spent every moment of free time looking for something to eat and celebrating when they were successful. At the end of the day I was sun burnt and tired but we were all sweaty and dirty. The girl’s dormitory building, however, was a solid step closer to becoming a reality in time for the upcoming school year.
current location. But for now, the children spend their summer days in the old bamboo buildings, playing on a small patch of dirt that becomes a lake of mud during the rainy season.
Thanks to some generous donors, Agape was able this year to realize an important dream: purchasing land to call their own. The land is beautiful. Ringed by mango and tamarind trees there is space for the school and dormitory buildings, place for mushrooms, chickens and a garden, and most importantly, there is room for children to run and play and make noise.
Unfortunately this year, we only had enough funds raised to construct one dormitory building. This year, all the material from the two dormitories at the old school will be recycled in order to build the boy’s dormitory building on the new land. We’ll be fundraising later this year so that in March 2010, we’ll be ready to build the boys a real home and a safe place to stay.