Save the Children in partnership with Right To Play, the Jesuit Refugee Service, and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency will hold a press screening of the film ‘Recognize Our Education: Realize Our Dreams’ along with presentations and a panel discussion on the topic of refugee children’s rights to quality education at the “Children’s Rights: Refugee Education” media event on Friday, 24 April 2015, at the Foreign Correspondence Club, Bangkok, Thailand.

The fact that the refugee education does not follow any country’s national curriculum has left refugee children with difficulties in accreditation of their knowledge with any education system.  There are currently approximately 110,000 refugees located in nine refugee camps along the Thailand – Myanmar border and the refugee situation in Thailand is now one of the most protracted in the world.

Elections in Myanmar in 2010 and a series of bilateral ceasefire agreements in 2012 have, for the first time, raised expectations about the prospect for national reconciliation and the voluntary return of refugees.

However, the education provided in the refugee camps is not aligned to either the Thailand or Myanmar education systems. Therefore, the education these refugee children receive remains unrecognized outside of the refugee camps.

The film ‘Recognize Our Education: Realize Our Dreams’ raises the voices of refugee children and teachers to highlight the need for clear policies to be established to ensure refugee children’s rights to education.  Information on the refugee camp education systems will be shared and a panel discussion held.

Save the Children in Thailandhas been working with Right To Play, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, the Karen Refugee Committee Education Entity, and the Karenni Education Department through the BEST (Basic Education Support towards Transition) Project to achieve basic education program and the durable and sustainable education solutions for children in refugee camps in Thailand along the Myanmar border. The BEST Project is supported by the European Union and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Event details
Representatives of the media are invited
Date:      Friday, 24 April 2015
Time:      3.00 – 5.00 p.m.
Venue:    Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand, Bangkok
Registration starts at 2.30 p.m., followed by presentations and a panel discussion on the current context of refugee education and views of children and refugees, as well as Myanmar’s reform agenda and the rights of ethnic minority children 

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For more information:
Songporn Leelakitichok
Communications and Advocacy Coordinator
Save the Children Thailand
Email: bea.leelakitichok@savethechildren.org