The Thoo Mwe Nee School has been built in Karen State to address the critical shortage of education available for IDP children in this area.  For the 2005/2006 school year, 50 children were able to receive education through 2nd Standard, food, and medicine.  15 of these 50 children also received accommodation at the Thoo Mwe Nee School because their home villages are not located within easy reach of a school and travel to and from school in conflict zones put Karen children at risk of endangerment by the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw). 

For the 2006/2007 school year, we hope to increase the number of students in the school from 50 to 150 students.  We also hope to extend the curriculum taught to 4th Standard.

We, the founders of the Thoo Mwe Nee School, regard education and good health basic human rights.  We are strongly compelled to do all we can to respond to the request for Thoo Mwe Nee’s expansion.  In fact, it is a call we cannot ignore.  These are the objectives we have set for ourselves in the 2006 and 2007 school years:

• To expand provision of basic literacy skills and general education for fifty to one hundred and fifty Karen internally displaced boys and girls aged five to fifteen years;
• To provide education in the subjects of English, Karen, Burmese, Mathematics and Health;
• To achieve 100% student pass rates in annual final exams;
• To improve the general health of IDP students by providing nutritious food and medicine for students who would otherwise not have access to such health education and care; and
• To provide accommodation for students from the surround area who do not have schools in their townships and who would otherwise be at risk of injury, forced labor and forced recruitment into the Burma Army if they attempted to make the daily journey to attend the school.

We are currently unable to call on local governmental or non-governmental agencies to aid in funding the Thoo Mwe Nee School. The Burmese military government actively discourages educational initiatives in Karen State when it sets fire to schools, abducts students for forced labor and to be child soldiers, and forcibly relocates entire villages. Neither Thailand nor Burma allows international organizations to provide humanitarian aid to IDP populations. Some schools have been built in Karen State by indigenous educational organizations, however, due to insufficient funds, these organizations have been unable to build a school in the Thoo Mwe Nee area.  Therefore, the construction and running of the Thoo Mwe Nee School has been accomplished wholly thanks to donations from caring individuals around the world.