By Katie Camarena, from the Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch.
In early 2009, I left the relative comfort of home in Sydney to live, work and volunteer on the Thai-Burma border. A planned three-month stay turned into a three-year journey as I found my feet as an aid worker.
I first spent time in Mae Sariang, a small town surrounded by Thai and Karen villages in the Yuam River Valley, about 50km from the border. I then moved to Mae Sot, a larger town just a few kilometres from the border.
In Mae Sariang, I worked with the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO), a women’s community-based organisation with members in refugee camps along the border and within Karen State, eastern Burma. During my time with KWO, I witnessed incredible strength and leadership from Karen women who had spent decades surviving conflict, displacement, and oppression.
Visit the KWO like Katie did, join our study tour to the border in November.
On of the projects I was working on was helping edit the report Walking Amongst Sharp Knives. I worked closely with one of KWO’s leaders, sorting through 95 first-hand accounts from women village chiefs who had borne witness to rape, torture, arbitrary execution, beatings, beheadings and people being burnt alive at the hands the Burma Army. The stories of violence and resistance that filled its pages have stayed with me.
In late 2009, I moved to Mae Sot to work with the Burma Children Medical Fund (BCMF) based at Dr Cynthia’s Mae Tao Clinic. I was living in Mae Sot when the 2010 elections in Burma turned violent. A day after the election, fighting broke out between ethnic rebel armies and the Burma Army in Myawaddy, the town on the Burma side of the river which forms the border. This resulted in 20,000 refugees crossing the border into Thailand. Amidst the violence and chaos, many organisations shut down. But APHEDA’s partner organisations stepped up.
Organisations like the Mae Tao Clinic, BCMF and KWO worked around the clock dealing with the crisis as it unfolded. I had a rare insight into the leadership of these organisations and how they stand by their communities. Leaders and staff had spent years building the skills, networks, and leadership to act in times of crisis. And APHEDA, through its values of solidarity, not charity, was right there with them. These experiences cemented my commitment to global justice and solidarity.
Today, that resilience is being tested again. Recent cuts to US Aid have severely impacted community-based organisations across Burma and along the Thai-Burma border. Programs supporting healthcare, education, women’s leadership and human rights have been scaled back or shut down altogether. These cuts don’t just reduce services – they undermine decades of work by local organisations. To make a bad situation worse, the military junta have weaponised aid, blocking life-saving relief from reaching areas worst hit by the deadly magnitude 7.7 quake which hit central Burma on 28 March this year.
APHEDA’s partner organisations are now dealing with a military dictatorship, the devastating impact of the earthquake, as well as the Trump administration’s cuts to aid. On the Thai-Burma border, the reduction in aid is hitting refugees hard. Having fled the violence of the military junta, refugees living in the nine camps along the border are having their food rations cut while access to healthcare services, medicines and materials has been severely impacted.
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More than a decade on, I still feel closely connected to the work of KWO through my membership of APHEDA. I now work for the Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch, a long-time supporter of APHEDA.
Learn more about our work with the KWO
For Australian unionists, international solidarity is an essential part of our movement. Our struggles are linked – an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere. APHEDA’s approach is rooted in solidarity; not charity. It’s grassroots assistance aims to address the causes of injustice, not the symptoms. For me, being part of APHEDA goes hand-in-hand with being a unionist.
