Immigration Education Coordination Center ( MECC)

The immigration school for children of immigrants from Myanmar is run by a foundation called the Migrant Educational Coordination Center (MECC) and several NGOs.

Each NGO has a fixed school to support, and MECC seems to play a role in coordinating the distribution of support so that there is no difference between immigrant schools.

This time, I asked two MECC staff members about the difficult thing, troubles, fun and rewarding things, what they want to do, the ideal support, and the support they wish they had in supporting an immigrant school.

The difficult thing about supporting an immigrant school is that even if children go to school until the end, they will not be able to go on to university, and it will be difficult for them to continue studying for the future.

Immigrant schools have introduced a Myanmar curriculum, and it is difficult to go on to university because they are not certified as high school graduates in Thailand.

The troubles are that the budget is insufficient and the children have few rights.

Immigrants often say that their parents are legal and their children are illegal even if they are in Thailand, and if they are illegal, they do not have the right to be granted in Thailand.

The fun and rewarding thing is that by giving non-educated children access to education, it may be possible to create future leaders. Both said that this job was very rewarding.

What they want to do is to raise more funds.

I wish we could create a mechanism to sustainably collect funds.

As for the ideal support, the wonderful answer is to help each other and complement each other to live a better life.

As for the support that they wish they had, it is to provide an opportunity for children to choose their own way of life.

I myself am very sympathetic to this, and I hope I can do these parts that are difficult for NGOs to do.

I think children in any environment have the right to decide their own path.

I would be happy if we could expand the future of children together while collaborating with MECC and NGOs and sharing roles with each other.