“Burma’s future…”

It was whilst overseas, recognising the ‘funding gap’ that the impetus to establish a new Edinburgh based charity, BEST (Burma Educational Scholarship Trust) came about. BEST now provides small supplementary grants that allow more students to apply for substantial sponsorship – where an element of some matched funding is a prerequisite.

The majority of these scholarship funds come from Educational Foundations, USAID and the US State Department, as well as the Soros Foundation and Prospect Burma – but recent political events have seen much overseas aid put on hold, making alternative and additional sponsorship vitally important.

Aung San Suu Kyi and the democracy movement in exile are adamant that supporting these young students into university is one of the best hopes for Burma’s future. The young people who benefit from a university education are committed to taking those benefits and using them within the wider community. Students are 110% dedicated to learning, not just for personal development, but so that they can share that learning and experience of development education and critical thinking.

One of the benefits of education at the NGO schools is the mixing of people from different ethnic groups, in stark contrast to the Burmese regime’s active policy of segregation. Suspicion, encouraged by the military junta, is replaced by a realisation of how much they have in common. It is this experience, along with the freedom to express themselves, which makes the young people powerful ambassadors for democratic change.

Around the borders, activists are talking not about blame and retribution but about the need to rebuild, the need for reconciliation, the need for active dialogue, respectful of diversity. However the situation inside Burma of remains extreme and the conditions are for refugees on the borders worsen daily.

The junta continues to wage war on dissenters and ethnic minorities, but the outside world remains oblivious. What should be a country rich with natural resources now can’t even feed its own people.

An eventual regime change in Burma could be exploited by multinational companies attracted by the country’s natural resources and the opportunity to exploit an impoverished workforce. Trade unions have been illegal in Burma since 1961 and those that exist in exile lack practical experience in areas such as collective bargaining and health and safety and BEST is currently exploring ideas for awareness raising and solidarity action with the public service union UNISON.