{"id":327634,"date":"2015-10-13T04:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T02:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/thailand-a-school-has-come-to-mae-sot\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:01:37","slug":"thailand-a-school-has-come-to-mae-sot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/thailand-a-school-has-come-to-mae-sot\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand: A school has come to Mae-Sot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC_0761\"<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s early morning, following a night of rain on the border between Thailand and Myanmar. Our breakfast consists of a hard-boiled egg and coffee. It\u2019s the beginning of our adventure: four days in Mae Sot<\/strong> with a priest who works for refugees, the least of the least, the ones who don\u2019t get into the official United Nations camps, the ones nobody cares for and who are often unpaid by those for whom they do a week\u2019s work. They\u2019re undocumented and don\u2019ts have the power to protest, because nobody will defend them. Many of them have spent many years in the forests, and finally they can come out. Living amongst the walls and tunnels of factories and makeshift huts, it\u2019s a miracle they\u2019re still alive. Nobody talks about them, and nobody knows about their situation, but everyone knows that they\u2019re worth their weight in gold, a low-cost work force of people ready to work for small salaries, just enough to live on. It\u2019s why Mae-Sot will become such a special economic zone with many industries. We want to be here for at least a few of them. <\/strong>We\u2019ve begun a project <\/a>that helps the children in a school that didn\u2019t exist too long ago, if not in the dreams of the children of Latina, Italy, and the refugee peers in Mae-Sot. \"20151013-02\"Now, the school does exist and it’s named is \u201cDrop by Drop\u201d. <\/strong>It\u2019s an unlikely pairing between Latina and the mire of Mae-Sot: injustice, illness, rape, abuse, and so on. Some do well, and some thank God that they are still alive in the morning. . . and at night! Like one of the children at the school. I ask his mother: \u201cWhat is your son\u2019s name?\u201d \u201cChit Yin Htoo,\u201d she tells me. It means: \u201cIf you love me answer me.\u201d <\/em>\u201cDid you give him the name when he was born?\u201d I ask. \u201cMaybe 3 or 4 years ago, maybe 5 or 6.\u201d At this point I stop and am unable to go on writing. I can only pray that I don\u2019t cry in front of this mother. How can this be? This project was a \u201cloving folly\u201c\u2019 that only the mind of a child could dream up. <\/strong>And that\u2019s what love is, it makes the desert flower, it spurs you to do the impossible, and it makes you glad! We adults follow these children with fear and trembling and respect, I would say: \u201cTheir angels gaze upon the Father in Heaven.\u201d When I\u2019m with \u201cIf you love me, answer me\u201d I find it hard to make him smile. He\u2019s shy and reserved. Only after much time am I able to take him in my arms: 6 years old, or perhaps 5. . . nobody is really sure . . . fragile and light as a feather. What have his small eyes seen? With a faint voice he\u2019s just able to whisper a message. We distribute food, milk and especially puppets and toys: lanterns, then clothes that make everyone happy. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough for everyone, but let\u2019s ask for a miracle,\u201d I suggest. Let\u2019s try to love one another and take care of each other as we do of ourselves.\u201d Their eyes brighten when they see the football and football uniforms that have been given by a Football Academy of Priverno, Italy. So much love arrives, and the children are gladdened because they feel the love. It changes their sad eyes. \"20151013-01\"<\/a>The school doesn\u2019t have actual walls: slightly damaged blackboards. The teachers are volunteers <\/strong>who are only able to be paid a monthly salary of 50 \u20ac. Then there is the net and the toilets. . . I feel that I am inside a sanctuary of love, the kind of cathedral that Pope Francis would like. Years ago, I made a vow \u2013 that this would be my people and I would never abandon them. In front of this school, this \u201cDrop of love\u201d in the ocean of evil that surrounds us, I renew that vow.\u201d Luigi Butori https:\/\/vimeo.com\/140934325<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Large refugee camps in northern Thailand take in thousands of people fleeing Myanmar. A few years ago a twinning project began between Karen Refugees \u2013 one of the persecuted ethnic groups \u2013 and the children of a school in Italy. We present this moving report by Luigi Butori, who helped build the bridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}