As 2024 draws quickly to a close, I find myself on the Thai/Burma border, with our partner organisations working here. I’m deeply impacted by the devastation that so many years of conflict and war continues to have on these people and communities.
I had the pleasure of meeting Saw, a Karen refugee living in a hill village in northern Thailand, close to the Burma border. The Karen people are a large and dispersed ethnic group of Southeast Asia. Saw left Myanmar with his family to escape the war and fighting. If he returns, he will be forcibly conscripted into one of the armies. Saw hopes to return to Myanmar one day, but for now he and his wife are ‘house parents’ caring for the steady stream of children escaping Myanmar to go to school in the villages on the Thai side of the border. Saw and his wife run a dormitory supported by one of our partners that was built to house 14 girls and 14 boys. It currently has 57 students with more coming most days. They have no option but to fit children in. It is a matter of survival. These children feel so privileged to go to school because they know that an education gives them a much better chance of getting work to provide for their families back in Myanmar.
Karen children in Myanmar have grown up with fighting and conflict, fleeing with their teachers into the forest when militia bomb and burn their villages, stealing crops and supplies. Killing and fear, displacement and loss are their only life experience. And for those who escape and flee over the border to Thailand, other hardships are ongoing. Refugee camps and villages constantly expand, becoming more and more overcrowded, with insufficient food, water, materials for housing….. and yet, there is a gentle grace about the people, and their hospitality to newcomers is astounding. People move over and make space, share their clothes, their food. When schools reach capacity, they run morning and afternoon classes so that all the children can receive an education. Community leaders organise care and provision, trying to ensure there is space for everyone who comes.
We can learn much from this generosity of spirit. Though they have little, they share, and everyone is included. In our totally different context, I’m also moved by the generosity of so many Entrust donors, who out of what they have, feel the need and show the generosity of spirit which I realise is a deeply rooted part of our human condition. I believe we are hard-wired to look out for others, to care for the needy and vulnerable. When this happens, when generosity is lived out, people’s lives are changed.
Thank you for journeying with us over this past year. It is humbling to now be in my second year as Entrust CEO and to have had the privilege of witnessing first-hand the incredible work of our local partners. I want to assure you, what you are enabling is life-changing.
The support Entrust provides through the generosity of donors in Australia, means that projects bringing clean water, supporting teachers, empowering people to generate an income, and raising awareness about human trafficking, really are bringing hope in hard places.
Thank you for your ongoing willingness to partner with us. Thank you for recognising that in hard places, the resources we can direct to well-run projects really can transform the lives of the poor. This is what you are part of.
We wish you a safe and happy Christmas 2024 and hope that through your choices to be generous, you too have been blessed as you have blessed others.
Nikki – Entrust CEO