Foundation for Education and Development, previously Grassroots HRE in Phang Nga, Thailand, is a Burmese-run human rights org I’ve volunteered for and visited twice. They primarily serve migrant workers on construction sites and rubber plantations by providing schools for migrants’ children and offering legal, educational and health services for adults.
If you’ve never seen a rubber plantation, it’s pretty amazing and beautiful. Thousands of rows of skinny trees all in a line. Little cups on all the trees. Crazy bugs. A stillness throughout the jungle. But the Burmese workers there are often attacked, murdered and raped as they tap the trees overnight, and are not usually paid well. This Irrawaddy report on life on the rubber plantation noticeably lacks mention of the extremely repressive and genocidal dictatorship in Burma which is the REAL reason people flee to work in Thailand, but nevertheless, it gives you a good sense of life there (story starts around 00:42). I was on this particular plantation twice:
This is a cartoon my friend G. made about some friends of his who are getting married soon. It uses their own narration. I thought it was pretty cute. Also because it involves ice cream.
When I last traveled to Southern Thailand, I set up some multimedia accounts for the Burmese human rights org I volunteered for, Foundation for Education and Development (FED) — formerly named GHRE. Now they’ve got some American volunteers who are working with staff to create videos. Woohoo! Here’s the latest one about some of the Burmese migrant children going through the traditional process of becoming monks (all the Buddhist boys do this at some point as a rite of passage):
Discovered on Flowing Data. The kid made it as a competition for a scholarship to film school (and won). Bonus points for pointing out the situation of stateless Burmese refugees.
My friend P. just sent me this super weird art video made recently by a German film student at the Uni of Lima. I was wondering why he sent it to me until about 4:45, when suddenly his wife appears! The esteemed N., my host in Lima last summer, apparently lent her artistic abilities to the screen. Watch and be confused.
While you were shoveling snow today, someone in Taiwan was filming the cherry blossoms with their mobile phone. This is courtesy of my thesis case study on Qik.com content. If you’re at all familiar with the Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda, you’ll appreciate the style. It’s like a visual haiku, isn’t it?
