Asia Catalyst Update
May 2011
Here’s what we did with your help in the last quarter. Our work to help grassroots Asian AIDS groups to survive
and thrive is going strong. But we need your help to help others. Please give: www.asiacatalyst.org/donate
Asia Catalyst quoted in the New York Times this week, here: https://nyti.ms/kgTdfH
Over 18,000 victims were affected by the 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar/Burma on March
24th, according to the Shan Herald Agency for News. Relief has yet to reach
many of the victims in Shan State, which is an ethnic minority region of the
country often wracked by conflict. For a recent update on the disaster,
see https://bit.ly/fiCZS.
The independent news agency has issued a call for appeals.
Donations for Shan State quake victims can be made at the following account:
Account name SHAN
Account number 402-387907-6
Siam Commercial Bank
Type of account Savings
Branch Big C Hangdong branch
Chiangmai, Thailand
or sent by Money Order (M.O.) to the following address:
SHAN, P.O.Box 15, Nonghoi P.O, Chiangmai 50007, Thailand
For further information, please contact
Tel: 081 531 2837 and 080 125 7474.
By Celina Su
In 2000, I began to work with a small, community-based project called the Burmese
Refugee Project (BRP) in northwest Thailand. Using a participatory
model of community development, the BRP helps over 100 Burmese Shan refugees in
northwest Thailand access education, health, and legal services. Through this
work, I learned that refugees are the victims of what public health researchers
call structural violence–physical and mental harm that results from unjust social, economic, and political
structures. Many of the prescriptions that would treat these ailments–such as a shared wheelbarrow so
that the refugees do not have to carry 50-kilo bags of rice on their shoulders,
and for the man above, sunglasses to treat pterygium (a scar on the eyes caused
by sun damage)–fall outside typical medical practice.
By Meg Davis
The crisis of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is creating incentive and space for mobilization of marginalized communities, and
otherwise restrictive states such as China and Myanmar (Burma) are largely allowing it. In recent months, both Chinese and Burmese sex worker-led organizations have moved into the public eye.
by Hye Gi Shim
“To be a journalist is to bear witness,” wrote Roger Cohen of The New York Times, “The rest is no more than ornamentation.” Today, bearing witness is made easier than ever thanks to the revolution in information and communication technology. The power to find, produce, and distribute information has expanded through the Internet and via digital cameras and cell phones leading to a growth of citizen journalists — people without professional training in journalism who produce, augment, or fact-check the news.
Asia is home to some of the most wired countries in the world (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) as well as to some of the most restricted ones (North Korea, Burma, Cambodia). The rising tide of the Internet, however, is lifting all boats. Citizen journalists are sharing opinions about corruption and food safety in Cambodia and China and are influencing presidential elections in South Korea and India, and influencing the outcome of major events.
