Child Care Centre at the refugee camp in Mae Hong Son

Khiri Reach supports the Child Care Centre, just outside of Mae Hong Son, in the remote Northwest of Thailand near the Myanmar border. The Centre, located in a Karenni refugee zone, is a small safe house for stateless orphans and disadvantaged children.

Karenni, meaning Red Karen, is a sub-tribe of the Karen people. The Karenni people are composed of diverse sub-tribal groups, which are ethnically closely linked. The Karenni State had been independent for centuries until 1948. After Burma gained its independence from British rule, Burmese forces invaded the Karenni State to force it to join the Burmese union. Since then the Karenni have been fighting for their independence.

The fighting in and around Karenni State has led to wide scale misery and displacement of the population. Tens of thousands have been living for almost a decade in dismal refugee camps on the Thai-Myanmar border.

Meredith Nunu, an elderly but very energetic woman, runs the Child Care Centre. Meredith herself is a widow and refugee. She has been living in a Karenni refugee camp since 1995. After her village was burnt down and her husband was killed in 1994 by the SLORC (the acronym for the Burmese junta at that time), she fled to Thailand with her young son. She ended up in one the refugee camps along the Thai border. After having worked as a teacher in a nursery school previously, she started taking care of a growing stream of orphaned and abandoned children in 2000.

Since about that time, Khiri Reach has supported Meredith’s Child Care Centre with monthly financial donations. In 2002 the inhabitants of the refugee camp were moved to a new location much closer to the border which is more dangerous for the refugees living there. Since then Khiri Reach has not been able to meet Meredith or the 40-plus orphan children in the camp itself. Meetings with Meredith and the children have to be arranged outside the camp.

On this webpage we will keep you updated regularly about Meredith and her children.

You can read more about the plight of the Karenni on the following websites:

http://www.karenni.org/about_the_karenni.php
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2002/281/