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:

Reposted from an email.

**Researching eGovernment 2.0 requesting your participation**

The Kogod School of Business at American University and the National University of Ireland, Galway, are collaborating on a research project that investigates the value of federal government web sites. Professors Murray Scott and William DeLone are leading the project; they are particularly interested in the value created in recent initiatives designed to promote citizen engagement and participation.
The researchers would very much appreciate your support by following the link below and completing the survey. The survey should not take any longer than 15 minutes of your time and can be found at: http://govsurvey.nuigalway.ie

The researchers can be contacted with any questions or comments at murray.scott@nuigalway.ie or wdelone@american.edu

This is part of an email by M.S., my friend who has been Capuano’s webmaster for years…

If you’ve watched TV, listened to the news on the radio, read the paper in the past 2-3 months, you probably have not been able to escape knowing there is an election coming up.

It’s Tuesday, December 8th and it’s the primary for the special election to fill the US Senate seat left open by Ted Kennedy.

There are four people running for the Democratic nomination. My vote will be for U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano, and I ask you to do the same.

For me it’s an easy vote — I have worked for Mike’s congressional office since 2003 as his webmaster. I wouldn’t have stayed on without feeling like Mike shares the values I hold dear, or if I felt for a moment that he did not have the best interest of his constituency at heart.

But more than that, I think Mike is the most qualified of all the candidates to excel at the job of Senator. He has both executive and legislative experience, and at all levels of government — local, state, federal — and has excelled at each one. As a U.S. Representative in Congress for 11 years, he has taken thoughtful stands on issues from health care to civil liberties to financial service reform to ending the genocide in Sudan. He argues his stance on the issues vehemently, but listens to others and will change his mind if he thinks he’s wrong. Perhaps most importantly — whether you agree with him or not, you know where he stands. He does not hide from people and he will not make you guess what he thinks. Since I began working for him in 2003, I never saw time when Mike did not reach out to the people he represents to share his thoughts and get others’ input on all issues big and small.

The primary election is next Tuesday, December 8th. The winner will be victorious by a slim margin, every vote counts. So I urge you to come out to the polls next Tuesday, and cast your ballot for Mike Capuano.

P.S. If you’d like to know more about Mike, e-mail me or check his website, www.mikecapuano.com. To see what Mike has done so far in Congress, visit his congressional website at http://www.house.gov/capuano.

I was so excited to discover that my favorite NGO, Burmese-run GHRE (recently renamed Foundation for Education and Development) is listed on Global Giving’s site. Well, to be clear, one of their initiatives — helping send elementary-aged children of migrant workers to attend school (GHRE-run “learning centers” in Southern Thailand) to prepare them for integration into Thai schools — is being promoted. This is really important because these kids otherwise have to go with their parents to help work on the rubber plantations or construction sites; and a lot of kids who attend learning centers still have to work after age 12, so it’s really crucial that they receive at least this limited education. PLEASE DONATE! Please please please!

I was there in 2006 and again in 2007, and visited many of the learning centers. They are really invaluable for these kids, especially for many orphans or children whose parents have been suddenly deported to Burma. Also, the lunches they provide (home cooked!) are awesome. The kids learn English, Thai, Burmese, Math, Health, and Buddhism in some cases. See DD’s photogallery to get a better sense of how amazing the schools and the children are, or my photos from my first GHRE visit. Note that most learning centers are thatched-roof, wall-less structures with donated desks and chairs, and they are usually somewhat hidden near rubber plantations so that the authorities won’t give them a hard time for helping the children of (often undocumented) Burmese migrants. I can’t urge you enough to support them! Make it a Christmas gift for someone!

UPDATE:
As per an email from the org director H.T., there is a deadline (12/23) and a fundraising goal ($4000), so act now!

FED-GHRE has been accepted to participate in the Global Giving
Challenge that runs from November 24th – December 23rd 2009. GHRE
needs to raise $4000 through at least 50 separate donors to gain a
permanent place on the Global Giving Website so we can gain further
support in all our worthwhile projects! Check out our website for more
information: www.ghre.org

Please help us by following this link and donating a minimum of $10 /
to our education project in the Khuk khak area that currently supports
265 students.

Mr. President O. came to campus today. I watched as his motorcade pulled up and the presidential limo pulled backwards into the back entrance of Kresge Auditorium, and then some people rushed out of the motorcade, and that was it. I was not invited to hear the speech because, ostensibly, I don’t study climate stuff.

HOWEVER, just before O. arrived, some other climate students did do an action as part of the global >350 (ppm sustainable carbon emissions goal) campaign, and I took part. The laptops are for techy-affect. I’m the one in the alpaca hat, por supuesto.

…but this is funny. Also I have nothing else to write until I finish my thesis presentation (on streaming mobile video, civic production and the redefinition of the public realm) so I had to post something.

I made this for my friend P.’s company, since they helped set up my trip around rural villages and covered the muy caro import taxes on my new camera. The legit documentary video I’m working on will offer more detailed and objective critique; this just serves as an introduction to the goals of the project, from the telecom’s perspective.

1. Impending marriage
It’s true, DD and I are getting hitched. But I’d like to do it quietly. In Spain. With no one there. Including family, although I love them. Many people debate this strategy, even though I promise to hold a huge celebration later. There seems to be a divide among those who think you should definitely have some form of a real wedding and extend the proverbial olive branch to relatives and friends who expect that sort of thing, and those who think you should do whatever you want. I am undecided. Thoughts?

2. Impending trip to Peru
It’s true, I’m going to rural Peru for six weeks, leaving mid-May. I was awarded a grant from an MIT entrepreneurship group to film a documentary on the use of new wireless networks in tiny villages around the Andes and Amazon (Cajamarca and Pangoa, in the northern and eastern regions). I will be doing all this in conjunction with Rural Telecom, a company run in part by my friend and former UK roommate, P. Right now I’m trying to find a Peruvian guy to accompany me and help conduct interviews, protect me from the riots, etc. Oy.

3. Impending thesis
I need to come up with a thesis topic, stat. My chosen theme is “mobility” — both sociologically and technologically. I am interested in the way societies are becoming more mobile, and how this in turn shapes the technologies we create, and vice versa. But obviously, I need to get a little more specific, and I only have a few weeks to nail down some more specific ideas because I have a paper/presentation/preliminary thesis debut due for class. Help! Ideas, please!

I ripped this from BB’s photoblog; she got to see our esteemed president up close on his first visit to Prague: