Programming for Undocumented Burmese
IRC’s Support to Health, Institution Building, Education, and Leadership in Policy Dialogue (SHIELD) program is a five-year project that takes an integrated approach to improving quality of life for victims of Burma’s civil conflict and economic morass. SHIELD’s primary aim is to increase access to and quality of education and healthcare services for undocumented Burmese living in Thailand.  Working across eight Thai provinces and targeting a population of over 100,000, SHIELD collaborates with a wide range of partners, including the Thai Education and Public Health Ministries, Burmese community-based organizations (CBOs) and other international NGOs.

Specific health program elements include: mobilizing communities to address their priority needs; provide health training by equipping a network of community health workers and volunteers to provide health education and promote better health practices; establishing and maintaining district and community health posts that offer primary healthcare services, including ante- and post-natal care, family planning, and immunizations; improving community water and sanitation facilities; establishing mobile health clinics to target isolated communities; supporting emergency medical referrals to Thai hospitals; providing language interpretation at Thai health facilities; and supporting health data collection and information systems.

In the education sector, IRC works through our partner World Education to increase children’s access to quality primary, secondary and non-formal educational opportunities.  Specific activities include: training teachers and school directors; developing standardized curricula for schools; collaborating with the Ministry of Education to increase undocumented Burmese children’s enrollment in the Thai public school system; establishing non-formal educational centers to promote adult literacy; and supporting parents to send their children to either Thai or community-run schools.
Through institutional capacity building, IRC improves the organizational skills of over 40 community-based organizations serving Burmese displaced communities by providing them with intensive training on organizational development, financial management, human resource development, community mobilization and transparency.  IRC also provides large and small sub-grants to over 25 local organizations to strengthen and expand their health and educational outreach to displace communities, including the Mae Tao Clinic, a community-run hospital that treats over 140,000 patients a year. Other sub-grants focus on community health education, water and sanitation services, occupational health, nutritional assistance, and school support.
To strengthen and complement its other programming, SHIELD’s advocacy team works with the Royal Thai Government and Thai civil society to promote positive change in the policy environment with regards to health and educational rights for undocumented workers. The advocacy team works to raise awareness of through policy conferences, research papers, networking, lobbying, and providing case-by-case legal and referral assistance and advice to individuals and organizations working with refugees, other unrecognized refugees and migrant workers.
 
Refugee Programming
IRC currently provides comprehensive health and  water and sanitation services to approximately 23,000 refugees in Ban Tractor/Ban Kwai Camp and Ban Mae Surin Camp in Mae Hong Son Province, and to 8,000 refugees in the Tham Hin camp in Ratchaburi Province.  These programs aim to reduce levels of refugee morbidity and mortality, while increasing capacity of refugee health care workers to provide curative and preventive services. Components of the primary and environmental health care program include technical support to camp clinics, maintenance of health centers, trainings of health workers, development of a comprehensive health information system, and provision of reproductive healthcare, child healthcare, and water and sanitation services. As a result of these interventions, the health status of Burmese refugees in the camps has been steadily improving from over the past 15 years, with all major health indicators comparable with Thailand and significantly better than in Burma. IRC continues to introduce innovative new health programs in the camps in response to priority health needs – focus areas in 2006 and 2007 are mental health, HIV/AIDs prevention and response, reproductive health services for youth, and psychosocial services.

Protection Programming
In 2006, in collaboration with UNHCR, IRC began the Legal Assistance Centers (LAC) project to promote the rule of law and access to justice for Burmese refugees in Thailand. The project has established Legal Assistance Centers serving approximately 60,000 refugees living in three camps (Mae La in Tak Province and the 2 camps in Mae Hong Son Province). The centers’ activities include: assessing existing traditional justice systems in the camps; building legal awareness among camp residents, leaders and refugee associations; providing resources for refugees seeking legal counsel; and establishing a referral system for prosecuting serious cases outside camp in the Thai justice system.  The LAC project empowers refugees with legal information, knowledge of their rights, and access to remedies for protection concerns.

In the Mae Hong refugee camps, IRC improves and expands community-based services that address gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response. GBV project activities have included the establishment of rape crisis teams in the camps and the development of the first interagency multi-sectoral rape and domestic violence response protocols along the Thai-Burma border.  The program has focused on providing technical support and capacity building training to camp staff on GBV response and prevention, developed referral connections for survivors with the regional hospital and established a women’s safe shelter for GBV survivors in the camps.  Together with UNHCR, IRC has established fluid and confidential processes for providing timely legal representation to survivors and for meeting their other protection needs. Since operational in 2004, there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of GBV cases reported to health and NGO staff in the two camps, a positive indicator that women facing violence are now seeking assistance. Current priorities for the program include increasing male involvement in GBV prevention activities and coordinating responses to domestic violence.

In 2007 IRC launched the Prevention of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation for the Thai/Burma border refugee camps.  In cooperation with the Committee for the Coordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand (CCSDPT.org) the project aims create an environment where refugees are able to access services free of abuse and exploitation and to strengthening the commitment and capacity of humanitarian agencies to respond to and prevent incidents from occurring. The program will also increase awareness among refugee about their rights, entitlements and the zero tolerance towards SAE, and will ensure PSAE is mainstreamed into all programmatic and operational sectors of the Thailand Refugee Program.

IRC’s Overseas Processing Entity (OPE) for Thailand and Southeast Asia opened in December 2005 to assist refugees seeking admission to the United States. OPE assists refugees in completing applications for consideration by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) staff and also develops information for organizations in the United States who offer sponsorship arrangements for those accepted for admission. OPE primarily assists refugees in Thailand but also conducts prescreening and DHS support missions to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia.