The Right to an Education for Burmese children project provides primary/elementary education for Burmese immigrant children with families who have fled to Thailand to escape persecution and extreme poverty in Myanmar. During the last school year 640 children were served. The project is promoted by the  United World Project (NGO) in collaboration with its local affiliate the Good Friend Centre in Thailand’s Mae Sot Province. Since 2006 Good Friend Centre has been working in Mae Sot Province providing primary education to Burmese children who have immigrated with their families, to escape persecution and extreme poverty in their homeland. Many of the families had to leave everything behind when they fled. Now they work as farmhands without the guarantee of regular salaries. The children often have to stay at home to help their parents in the fields. Their inability to pay tuition and school fees is a further discouragement that leads them to abandon early schooling. With 8 schools on the Thailand, Myanmar border, the Good Friend Centre provides free schooling to hundreds of children who would otherwise not be able to receive and education. To help the school become economically independent, production activities have begun to pay for educational fees (salaries and professional development courses for teachers, a daily meal for the children, school uniforms and educational materials). In 2011 the United World Association supported a project for raising chickens and pigs beside the New Blood School, a project which supports 450 children who are attending the school. For several months, a 5-acre plot has been rented beside the school for the cultivation of beans and corn, providing further support for the project. This new school year began with 2 production projects (raising fish and pigs) which will support the Mae Wah Khee School and the Pa Lu Gyi School attended by 190 children. This project requires an initial investment for the purchase of 3,000 fish and 10 pigs and a year’s salary for personnel. The pig farm should become self-supporting in 15 months; whereas, the fish farm should begin producing profit for the school in 5 months. These projects will help the schools to be independent of external support, and continue to provide free services to minors who otherwise would have no access to an education. Source: Action for a United World Newsletter