Support for Health, Institution Building, Education, and Leadership in Policy Dialogue (SHIELD)

Approximately 130,000 refugees from Burma live in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, and well over 400,000 live unofficially in Thai communities along the border. Some of the refugees have lived along the border for a decade or more, and have seen whole generations of children grow in the camp environment.

World Education, working with the International Rescue Committee and funded by a grant from USAID, acted under SHIELD to increase access to and improve the quality of education for Burmese refugees and migrants in Thailand. World Education trained teachers and school administrators, and worked on the development of curriculum and teaching materials and special education. To assist refugees and displaced people living outside of the refugee camps in Thai villages, and to the Thai villagers who host them, World Education also provided targeted educational support to several Thai communities along the Thai-Burma border. All work was carried out in cooperation with community-based organizations (CBOs) working along the border to ensure sustainability and effectiveness of the training efforts, and to create a sustainable education system that can be quickly adapted when displaced families return to Burma.

SHIELD led to 1,162 migrant parents actively supporting their children's schools by providing food, labor, and donations. More than 9,000 teachers, 400 school directors, and 8,000 parents were trained by World Education to help improve the education for children from Burma who attend schools in Thailand. 42,000 standards-based textbooks in Thai, English, math and science have been delivered to migrant schools for grades 1-6 creating the first standards-based curricula for migrant schools.

The result of these efforts has helped ensure a brighter future for refugee and migrant children on the Thailand-Burma border through continued funding and support via the Project for Local Empowerment (PLE).