Burma Border Refugees

Handmade weaved Karen shoulder / satchel bag Black

I have just received an order of 17 handmade Karen satchel bags made in the traditional Karen weaving style in the refugee camps on the border. They are just beautiful and really useful for a whole range of things. They have amazing patterns weaved into them and are of a very high quality.

All the proceeds will be sent back to the Karen’s women organization to purchase educational supplies for the kids in the camps.

This bag is 35cm x 38cm and stretches out about 12cm. the strap is 120cm long so that its sits at the hip. The strap is 16cm wide and can be worn full or folded over. The hand weaved design has beautiful features with very thin lines and tiny crosses all weaved into the bag. It also has tassels hanging from the bottom and the sides. You will love this bag!

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Just send me your email address in a message and I can send you a paypal invoice and post it off to you (please include your postal address in the message) also let me know what colour you would like...

They are $35AU each plus $5AU postage ($10AU for international).

But they are really worth it and you can be happy to know that they money is all going to a very needy cause!

I have them in red, green and blue, cream and grey…(sorry there is no black left)

Contact me for more details

Thanks for the support!

Burma (also known as Myanmar )has been run by a brutal military dictatorship for over 40 years. A large majority of the 53 million people of Burma have been used and abused by the military dictatorship as salve laborers to build the now many tourist destinations. The country is one of the worlds biggest producers of heroin and the black market trade funds the evil dictatorship.
They use rape and sexual abuse as an act of war against the many minority ethnic groups in the country and have internally displaced over 1 million civilians. The situation is horrific. In 1988 there was an uprising lead by the students of Burma to oppose the military dictatorship and its harsh policies. The military responded by opening fire on civilians, killing and badly wounding men, women and children. Over 3000 innocents were murdered but many of the bodies were never found at the officers cremated them to hid the proof. When the nurses from the hospitable linked arms and marched down the street in their whites, begging them to stop killing people, they were also shot dead.

This revolution-gone-wrong, forced thousands of people to flee for there life into the dense forest near the border with Thailand . They hid there, living and to this day are continuing to fight a bloody resistance against the Burmese military. Many more people where jailed and tortured, family members of dissidents were killed in pay-back for the disobedience of their kin.

Today, there is still a war being fought between the ethnic minority Karan people of Burma and the dictatorships military armed forces. Over 70,000 children have been used as child soldiers by the military, many of them being horribly murdered when they are no longer of use to them. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped and sexually abused at the hands of the military and many people have just disappeared. This has caused an influx of desperate people to flee their homelands to the border with Thailand, where there are now an estimated 1 million people living as ‘internally displaced’ people, there are several hundred thousand in UN refugee camps, over 2 million migrant workers in Thailand and thousands have been relocated as refugees to third countries.

Many people are so scared for their life that they spend years hiding in the jungle, but the military keeps breaking down the resistance, forcing people to move yet again.
60- 80% of the refugees living on the border are women and children.

I got back in March from 5 weeks of travelling in Soth East Asia primarily on the Thai/Burma border. I spent two weeks visiting with Non-Government and Community based organisations (NGO and CBO) as well as going into the Ma Ra Mo refugee camp. The Karen people that I met were amazing, the stories heartbreaking, but the strength and courage shown by these persecuted people was heartening. I have included some photos on my myspace page and also will upload some more information about the organisations that I visited and ways in which you can help out. If anyone has any questions please feel free to message me...

WHAT TO DO SOMRTHING? The Moa Toa clinic on the border has recently set up a children’s medical fund which specifically provides for children that have been injured in their escape from Burma. The website http://burmachildren.com/ has several options for donating and anything helps as a small amount can go along way. Some ideas for easy fundraising; - have a dinner party and get all your friends to pay you for your cooking delights - send a collection envelope around at work with some information on the situation on the border and ask everyone to throw in some lose change...
Thanks to all those who came along to the fundraiser on Friday the 8th December in Melbourne. We are so happy to announce that we raised $3000 and will be donating to three very worthy organisations on the Thai/Burma border; an unaccompanied minors orphanage; the medical children’s fund for emergency operations; and a nursery school that looks after 1300 young children.
Do you want to donate to a very worthy fund to help refugee children?

The Moa Toa clinic on the border has recently set up a children’s medical fund which specifically provides for children that have been injured in their escape from ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = .."urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags.." / Burma .

The website http://burmachildren.com/ has several options for donating and anything helps as a small amount can go along way.

I myself have organised a fundraiser (see flyer below) to help get some money together for this clinic and an orphanage on the border.

Perhaps you could do a collection at work or among your family and friends?

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I got back in March from 5 weeks of travelling in Soth East Asia primarily on the Thai/Burma border. I spent two weeks visiting with Non-Government and Community based organisations (NGO and CBO) as well as going into the Ma Ra Mo refugee camp. The Karen people that I met were amazing, the stories heartbreaking, but the strength and courage shown by these persecuted people was heartening. I have included some photos on my myspace page and also will upload some more information about the organisations that I visited and ways in which you can help out. If anyone has any questions please feel free to message me...