Rays of Youth
The unstable socio-economic and political conditions in Myanmar have forced many people to flee the country. In their journey to Thailand, young Burmese and ethnic minority migrants are often exposed to forced labour, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and drug addiction. Their vulnerability is aggravated by the consistent lack of a proper education, a permanent condition of poverty and poor health conditions.
Children and youth particularly suffer the double jeopardy of vulnerability due to their young age and lack of education and life skills. In addition, children and youth from Myanmar are particularly vulnerable to the effects caused by hardships as they lack proper guidance and support. Due to the oppressive dictatorship that has been governing Myanmar for decades, youth lack proper models of leadership which they can look to for inspiration. Moreover, drug and alcohol abuse as well as child abuse are still a widespread reality in Burmese familial and community settings.
Consequently, their lack of life-skills, educational credentials and access to opportunities further exposes them to the dangers of the street. Without the right education and support networks and interesting activities to engage in, they risk becoming prey to present antisocial temptations that could jeopardize their future.
In 2009, Help without Frontiers launched the Rays of Youth (RoY) project to keep these vulnerable migrant children and youth off the street by educating them on child rights and protection, human trafficking, environmental problems, health and personal hygiene, empowering them with a brighter future. The program offers a strong creative arts, media and communication foundation to its training, and its peer-led management and design format makes it unique in the youth leadership field.
In Thailand, Burmese and ethnic minority youth attending Migrant Learning Centres can apply for the RoY programme and choose between the Peer Leadership and the Music curricula.
The RoY Peer Leadership programinvolves 20 youth who dedicate the first part of the one-year program to their own personal training, growing their confidence and personality, and learning how to stand in front of an audience and moderate public events. In the meantime, the youth receives training on social issues such as human trafficking and safe migration, human and children rights, gender equality, sexual reproductive health and rights, and much more. As a conclusion of the one-year program, the youth pass on what they have learnt to their peers at migrant schools as well as onto their own communities through Mini Projects, thus becoming leaders for social change.
The ROY Music programinvolves another 20 youth who receive one-year training on music composition and learn to play instruments such as keyboard, guitar, bass and drums. The participants to the Music program also receive trainings on social issues and convey knowledge onto peers and community members through producing educational music videos and albums.
The enthusiasm with which youth engage in the RoY projects is expressed in the roadshows they hold for local communities, with a creative mix of music and drama. In these performances, youth give back to their communities by acting as role models and raising awareness on social problems like human trafficking, forced labour, child labour, child rights abuse, sexual exploitation and drug abuse. The RoY team regularly engages in media workshops and trainings to further disseminate their messages and expand their knowledge and creativity.
Since 2014, the Rays of Youth team launched the Cross-Border Projectin Karen and Rakhine states to conduct awareness raising activities in Myanmar. Preliminary visits to select villages in Karen and Rakhine states were conducted in order to build up a network of community leaders, teachers and political representation. In addition, a needs assessment was carried out to identify the specific problems of villages in order to tailor workshops addressing those specific needs of the youth, establish community development projects and promote campaign events. Following the baseline studies, the Rays of Youth found that many remote areas, especially in Karen state, have scarce hygiene practices and do not have access to sanitary services. As a response to the needs of the communities, since 2016, the Rays of Youth Cross Border team has been implementing a Toilet project in remote villages of Karen state so as to build toilets and empower the local population with knowledge and skills on basic hygiene and toilet sanitation through capacity building trainings as well as through awareness raising campaigns and events.
In April 2017, the Rays of Youth Cross Border Project set up an office in Hpa-an, Karen State. The long-term objective of the project is to expand the network of community leaders, NGOs and CSOs across Myanmar to empower children and youth with knowledge and skills to lead social development. Nowadays, the cross-border project activities target villages and communities in five states, namely Karen, Rakhine, Mon, Shan, and Kayah states. In 2019, the first group of 25 youth has been selected from the five targeted states inside Myanmar to join an intensive six-month Myanmar Leadership programheld in Mae Sot, Thailand.
In 2019, the Rays of Youth project will celebrate its tenth anniversary. Since the inception of the Rays of Youth program, more than 100 youth have been trained and graduated from the Leadership program. Awareness raising activities and events have reached more than 49,000 community members.
