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Art
for education
In recent years, more than a million Burmese people
have been forced to flee to refugee camps in Thailand.
Recognizing the significance of lost educational opportunities
for children in refugee camps, five years ago
Champlain College and Bishop’s University built partnerships
with three schools for migrant children in the
Mae Sot area and student volunteers were selected in
2004 and dispatched to Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese
border. The Eastern Townships – Mae Sot Education Project
is a campus-based project that sends volunteers annually
from Bishop’s University and Champlain College to assist
Burmese migrant children who have fled Burma (Myanmar)
because of the civil unrest and economic hardship. Each year
this small project sends four student volunteers to assist local
educators. The project also sends donations to the schools for
the purchase of classroom materials. Derek Heatherington, a
member of the project committee established to support Mae
Sot’s three schools said the cost of sending a student teacher to
the region is approximately $25,000.
The project has provided invaluable experience in global
sharing to students at Lennoxville’s two learning institutions
and provided vital support to a vulnerable people when they
are most in need. To support the project, an art auction,
dubbed Art From Borders Far and Near was held June 5 at the
Gilly Gooly Gallery In North Hatley to benefit the Eastern
Townships – Mae Sot Education Project. Paintings from both
Eastern Townships and Burmese artists were auctioned, raising
some $11,000 All proceeds from the sale as well as donations
will go to support the Eastern Townships – Mae Sot
Education Project, assisting Burmese migrant and refugee
children in Thailand.
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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS FROM
THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS
Paula Curphey (potter)
Sara Peck Colby
Lucie Doheny (potter)
Margot Graham-Heyerhoff
Mary Martha Guy
Carolyn Jones
Gordon Ladd
Naisi Le Baron
Stuart Main
Barbara Matthews
Dennis Palmer
Donnie Rittenhouse
Joyce Schweitzer Cochrane
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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS FROM
BURMA WERE
Chu Cil
Kyaw Kyaw Heain
Win Htun
La Sam
Sein Sein Lin
Wanna Zaw
Eh Shue (migrant school youth)
Klain Shu Awa (migrant school youth)
Ywa Hitla (migrant school
youth)
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 For information about the Eastern Townships - Mae Sot
Education Project, visit
http://www.ubishops.ca/maesot/index.html. To
donate,please make your cheque out to either the Champlain
College Foundation or the Bishop’s University Foundation,
specifying the donation is for the Mae Sot Project.
Send to Mary Purkey, Box 67, Champlain Regional College
- Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, QC J1M 2A1. Tax creditable receipts
are issued for donations over $10.
BY
STÉPHANIE AUBIN
I wonder if all teachers go into the job wondering what on
earth they are going to do with their classes. Judging from
what I have gathered, many new teachers feel like they
should be sitting down as students and listening while taking
down notes.
Despite the fact that a Champlain teacher has trained all
four of us volunteers with the Eastern Townships - Mae Sot
Education Project in ESL teaching, I still feel insecure. I can
imagine myself in front of rows and rows of Burmese children
sitting on the floor, a giant amongst them, wondering,“Now, what do I do with them?”
I worry because I really want to help these children. I
want them to have a good enough education to forge their
way in life. Much of their future rides on this, and I wish I
could know right away whether I am a good teacher or not.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not so naïve as to believe that one
simply is or is not a good teacher. I know that one becomes
a good teacher. Despite this, there is a part of me that wishes
I could simply know right now whether or not my presence
will be beneficial to the Burmese refugee and migrant
children I come into contact with.
I know that some things will work and that sometimes I
will get the horrifying blank stare and the “What is she saying?”
look. Yet these are not as important as what the kids
take with them from my teaching. No, the true fear is that
they retain nothing, that they will simply memorize what I
am saying without understanding it, that, in the end, once all
is said and done, I will simply be a babysitter teaching them
tricks and fancy words in a foreign language.
Maybe my fears are getting the better of me. It is easy to
build horror stories when there is an unknown factor. Yet, as
I pack my bags and ready myself for Thailand, for the great
adventure, these worries plague me.
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