My Sister Saves the World

While she may poo-poo that title, my lovely little sister Meredith is doing amazing work on the Thailand-Burma border. This is an area of the world that few in the US pay attention to, but what's going on there is atrocious and worth our time and effort to understand (think Darfur). She works with Burmese refugees who have fled violent oppression from the military junta in power in Burma (officially called Myanmar on most maps). This is the homeland of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest after the political party which she leads won most of the leadership positions in free elections in 1989.

Many of the people Meredith works with are actually not classified as refugees by the Thai government, and that deprives them of a great deal of assistance. It is a complicated problem, but at its core is one of humanitarian concern and should outrage us. Please, please, please read more in the latest issue of World Ark magazine (go to page 28) and see my links on Activism for further information and how you can help. Perhaps the best thing you can do is to educate yourself and others about what's going on, because knowledge is power.

World Ark: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201480