El-Branden Brazil

Photographer, Writer & Mystic Traveller

Posts tagged ‘Mae Sot’

Mae Tao Clinic, Thailand

Acupuncture Administered At Mae Tao Clinic
Acupuncture Administered At Mae Tao Clinic

A Doctor At Mae Tao Clinic
A Doctor At Mae Tao Clinic

Pregnancy Ward At Mae Tao Clinic
Pregnancy Ward At Mae Tao Clinic

A Woman Being Checked By A Doctor
A Woman With Severe Diabetes Being Checked By A Doctor

A Burmese Mother At Mae Tao Clinic
A Burmese Mother At Mae Tao Clinic

Mae Tao Clinic's Surgery Theatre
Mae Tao Clinic’s Surgery Theatre

A Burmese Mother & Infant At Mae Tao Clinic
A Burmese Mother & Her Infant At Mae Tao Clinic

The Mae Tao Clinic (MTC), founded and directed by Dr. Cynthia Maung, provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers, and other individuals who cross the border from Burma to Thailand. People of all ethnicities and religions are welcome at the Clinic. Its origins go back to the student pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988 and the brutal repression by the Burmese regime of that movement. The fleeing students who needed medical attention were attended in a small house in Mae Sot.

Since 1989 MTC has grown, from that one small house to a large complex of simple buildings that provide a wide variety of health services to different groups of people. Today it serves a target population of approximately 150,000 on the Thai-Burma border. Exact numbers are hard to calculate because of the fluidity of the population. About 50% of those who come to MTC for medical attention are migrant workers in the Mae Sot area; the other 50% travel cross-border from Burma for care.

Mae Tao Clinic Objectives:

1. To provide health services for displaced Burmese populations along the Thailand-Burma border.
2. To provide initial training of health workers and subsequent corollary medical education.
3. To strengthen health information systems along the border.
4. To improve health, knowledge, attitudes, and practices within local Burmese populations.
5. To promote collaboration among local ethnic health organizations.
6. To strengthen networking and partnering with international health professionals and institutions.

Please support this vital service. maetaoclinic.org/

Photography by El-Branden Brazil

People Of Mae Sot Dump

Photography by El-Branden Brazil

Currently about 300 people, 68 families live in small bamboo huts on stilts at the rubbish dumpsite of Mae Sot/ Thailand. These refugees who successfully fled the brutal military regime in Burma, with hopes of leading a life free of human rights abuses, are living under dire conditions. They lack working and residency papers, they are illegal immigrants living and working in the middle of stinky dump.

Their spirit of survival is amazing, but their conditions are terribly dismal. They literally live on the garbage and their houses are constructed and built from the recycled material from the garbage dump itself. The basic essentials they need to survive and to live as human beings basically come from the garbage dump and these include food, clothing, toys for their children, pots and utensils for cooking and even the water they drink come from the lake near the dumpsite which is terribly contaminated.

Please help to make a difference and relocate these refugees to a clean and safe area. On a rented property we will build basic infrastructural facilities such as housing, toilets and a water well.

Learn more here about how you can help: www.thebestfriend.org

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