Today I went with Alice to visit one of the migrant learning centres that she works with. These are schools that have been set up by the migrant communities themselves. The one we saw today was established over 10 years ago. It is about an hour's drive from Mae Sot, in an area populated by Thai Karen. The learning centre has around 700 migrant students, from nursery to Grade 12, and has received support from various NGOs and projects, though usually targeted at the older students. The work that Alice started last year with the nursery class is the first focus on Early Childhood.
The book corner. There were no books or other resources, and story-telling was not a feature of the school day. This little book corner is now stocked with home-made and published books, and the children love to hear stories.
Other resources provided by a VSO small grant for improving the learning environment
This young teacher is new and untrained, but was doing a fantastic job with the children.
Using different materials to practise letter formation
This is one of the Kindergarten teachers that attended the training workshop in May. Note the home-made charts in use on the wall!
The school has dormitories for students whose families are in Burma, or whose parents work too far away for the children to be able to attend school.
One of the buildings for the older students
On our way back, we stopped off to have a picnic lunch at a waterfall. The area has been developed as a very pleasant and scenic local attraction, with steps and walkways leading down from the road through the trees. Apparently in the dry season the water is crystal clear, but because of the recent rain it was very muddy
No comments:
Post a Comment