Elaine Carton recalls a picture drawn by Kuang Site, a Karen refugee boy, in one of her art classes.
“It was a picture of a dog ... [accompanied with] a short story about its life. The dog didn’t have any mother or father and nobody in the world. It was really lonely and had no hope and no future,” Carton said.
The gloomy image reveals as much about an ethnic group as it does about the young artist who drew it. But if the drawing tells the boy’s recent history — and that of a displaced people — Carton said she hopes her art class will provide some respite from the sadness that the picture reveals.
“It’s a kind of release for the children ... just a little bit of fun,” Carton said. “I try to do a lot of art and games [in the classroom] — things that can distract them from their everyday lives.”
For a few months every year, Carton, 30, trades the upscale classrooms of a Banqiao school, where she teaches English, for the verdant rice fields and a makeshift orphanage and school on the outskirts of Mae Sot on the border of Myanmar and Thailand. There she lives and eats with the children, whom she teaches English and art.
A resident of Taiwan for five years, the Irish national spends the rest of the year in Taipei teaching, fundraising and collecting toys, books and clothes for aid organizations and relief workers that help Myanmar’s Karen refugees fleeing poverty and persecution in their homeland.
“It’s an area of the world with so much pain and so much poverty. And there is something about being a teacher [in Taiwan]; you make a lot of money and have a lot of time. It’s a skill we have and there is a need over there,” she said.
The list of organizations and individuals that Carton supports is difficult to keep track of because there are so many. The independent relief worker gives money to the Mae Tao Clinic, an aid organization that provides free medical care to Karen refugees, and Sister Joy, a woman who cares for Muslim street children (Carton currently supports five children at a cost of NT$5,500 for each child per year).
The majority of her fundraising efforts, however, go to Pipi, an elderly Karen woman who operates Hway Ka Loke (named after the region of Mae Sot where its located), on orphanage and school that provide aid to some of the thousands of refugee children flowing over the border. The camp has a school that provides basic education, sleeping quarters and a kitchen.
“The [Myanmar] army ... will go into an area and burn the schools down. And a member of the family will bring the children over the border to refugee camps or send them to migrant schools,” she said.
But the problem the refugee camp currently faces has little to do with Myanmar’s military junta.
Five months ago, Cyclone Nargis devastated the camp’s infrastructure leaving Pipi without a school to teach her children. Additionally, more refugees than normal are streaming over the border to escape starvation, which adds stress to the camp’s basic infrastructure.
Through three fundraisers Carton collected 30 boxes of toys, clothes and books and raised NT$220,000, enough money to purchase materials and rebuild the destroyed school — a building that is now complete and sturdier than the original.
For Carton, living at the orphanage and school at first took a while to get used to, especially the local diet, which included “snail stew and strange leaves.”
“I’ve never gotten sick but living amongst cockroaches and lice is hard to get used to,” she said. “I’ve had some pretty interesting [insect] bites.”
When asked why she doesn’t sign on with an international aid organization, Carton chooses her words carefully.
“I guess I’m dubious about where all the money goes. For me I just want to make sure it makes it to the right place. And I want the freedom to work with different kids,” she said.
“[Institutional] aid organizations usually want you to go over for a year and for me that’s too much. I can see why they would stipulate this … because the kids get attached and are really sad to see [us] go.”
Having worked with refugee children, Carton plans to return to her native Ireland next year and begin studying child counseling so that she can turn her humanitarian work into a career. But first she plans to travel to the camp after Christmas and spend another two months teaching and helping out.
“It’s changed me ... and when I come back [to Taiwan] I always feel a little sad because I miss the kids,” she said.
Those interested in donations or inquiries, please send an e-mail to elainedimples@hotmail.com.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source