Mia culpa... who knows when we'll be all together again?

Well, this is a guest blog from Murray, who is feeling kind of bereft after the past week’s friendship and solidarity that only comes from a seemingly bottomless supply of toilet stories from Sheila – this should perhaps be renamed www.forthview.bogspot.com – and the deep connections we have consolidated with our Burmese friends, parting from whom was so moving and has left me humming incessantly:

“We’re all together now - we’re here, we’re here...”

I have been given a long list of complicated jobs to complete as a prelude to the first part of Forthview’s reciprocal visit in September, which will coincide with work involving five Edinburgh schools’ “Awards for All” initiative - something which was planned before “my retirement” out east to Chiang Mai.

Fortunately these tasks fit very well into the community capacity building remit of my voluntary work in Chiang Mai and the Thai-Burma border and plans to extend the training opportunities for Migrant Worker/Refugee Teachers including our Edinburgh partner schools, look like being met by Dr Thein Lwin in a programme of intensive training for teachers in the Mae Sot cluster in October.

Discussions about support for Migrant schools to register as Thai Ministry of Education Learning Centres funded by the International Labour Organisation are now underway, bringing together Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and potentially the British Council into a strategic plan, which would potentially safeguard the schools’, teachers’ and pupils’ futures.

Elsewhere today, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, established in 2006 by a group of women Nobel Peace Laureates, held a special seminar at Chiang Mai University, led by one of NWI’s founder members, Anti-landmines campaigner, Professor Jody Williams. International participants included the UNICEF goodwill ambassador and famous American actress Mia Farrow, Chinese labour rights activist Qing Zhang and Dr. Sima Samar former Vice-President of Afghanistan. Discussions at the seminar focussed on the political-rights crisis faced by women in both Burma and Thailand. Mia Farrow gave a very moving account of work UNICEF have undertaken in Darfur, showing children’s drawings of villages burning, soldiers shooting women and children – images almost identical to those drawn by Burmese children on the border.

There was video testimony by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, (herself a Nobel Peace Laureate whose house arrest was recently extended for another year) which was presented and discussed, as were the systematic violations of women’s rights, the crackdown on democracy activists and the ongoing violence in Burma. A background of the terrible ongoing situation in Burma was also presented, highlighting Aung San Suu Kyi’s situation, the regime’s criminal blockage of aid to cyclone Nargis survivors and the situation of refugees on Burma’s borders who are continuing to flee from persecution.

Much of the discussion was about collectivising individual actions and active citizenship and Murray had spoken earlier with the panel, giving them each a Forthview saffron ribbon and telling them about Forthview – and now Pirniehall’s – unique Global School’s partnership with our Burmese friends: school to school; teacher to teacher; pupil to pupil. They were so moved that they proudly wore the ribbons throughout the press call and afterwards once the event was over and they said they would wear them all this week when they too visit Mae Sot – another wee bit of international solidarity and awareness raising by Forthview pupils and BEST! Told you it would happen Sheila... and here’s the photo to prove it!