Marist Education Centre (MEC)

It’s taken a long time in the planning.

But on January 14 the Marist Mission in Ranong celebrated the official blessing and opening of a Centre that will serve as a base for many of our educational activities.

Fr. Suwat of our diocese of Surat Thani blessed the house, which, as a Catholic ritual, caused quite some bemusement to our almost entirely Buddhist guests.

After the blessing and welcome address, a representative from the Thai Education Offices in Ranong gave an encouraging talk. We were also happy to welcome representatives from various other Thai Government departments.

Then the students who have been with us for more than a year gave a couple of items. We were very proud of one young man who spoke very clearly and well, thanking MMR, in English, Thai and Burmese. Very few people in Ranong are competent in all three languages. Yet if we are to communicate well here in Ranong – and beyond - we need all three. Some of the girls performed a lovely Thai dance, too.

The new Centre will serve as the basis for three main activities.

It will provide some classrooms for older Burmese students who “fall through the cracks”. They cannot attend Thai schools and there is no longer a place for them in the Burmese “learning centres”. They would be expected to be working by the age of 12 or 13. We hope to provide a secondary-school level skills training for them… especially language skills so that they can develop in the very demanding situation of being children of migrant workers in Ranong.

We are also offering training for some of the many, many children in Ranong who never go near a classroom of any kind. We will try to find them a place in some sort of educational scene. Especially we are trying to save them from a life of near servitude in mindless labour.

We are also offering English classes for any young people who may want to attend. Thai young people are especially welcome since we want to be sure that our attention is not directed only to Burmese children. It’s important to be inclusive and open to all.

We were very happy with this blessing and opening of the Centre. We hope and pray it will give some of the most needy children of our world – children of migrant workers from Burma – a real opportunity to develop and grow.

We are grateful to everyone who has helped this to happen … and many people have been involved. We are especially grateful to our generous benefactors.