Women Exchange Project
The Women´s Exchange (WE) project supports 15 Women’s Exchange groups throughout Thailand. These Women’s Exchange groups are women-only spaces where migrant women learn about their rights, share experiences and problems, and solve them together. The WE Project has provided migrant women with knowledge about rights and crisis management, and links them with a network of organizations in their communities in case they need assistance.
The WE project reached over 1,300 women in 2017 alone.
Education and Identity Project
As an effort to protect the rights of migrant children and youth, the Education and Identity project spreads information about birth registration, child and parent documentation, labour rights, and facilitates access to Thai public schools with its scholarship awards.
Thailand´s “Education for All” policy gives all children in Thailand the right to attend public schools without paying fees, including migrant children. The Scholarship Project helps migrant parents to enroll their children into Thai schools. Despite the right to access education, many families face obstacles to keep their children in school, often due to the costs of uniforms and other school supplies. MAP helps these families by giving scholarship to migrant students to support the additional educational costs.
In addition, the project organises other supportive activities with students, parents and school administrators, such as parent meetings, youth exchange, identity workshops and home visits.
Crisis Support Project
The crisis support project strives to support migrants who are facing crisis. Because of language barriers, high costs, and complicated administrative procedures, accessing Thai Health services can be challenging for migrants who often have no family or safety net to rely on in Thailand. The project supports migrants in crisis, both through a phone hotline and in person, by guiding them and facilitating their access to the appropriate services. The project also provides interpreters and visits migrants in need to give them moral support during these difficult times. The Crisis Support project has been running since MAP was established and is well known within the migrant community in Chiang Mai.
Migrant Youth Empowerment Project
The needs of migrant communities are often neglected in rural areas. As a response, the Migrant Youth and Empowerment project, together with partners, reaches out to migrant children and their families in rural areas both in Mae Sot and Tak provinces. This group is particularly vulnerable therefore the project aims to ensure that these children and youth are informed about access to education, economic security, sexual and reproductive health rights, and protection from abuse, exploitation and violence.
Information is provided through outreach visits, community workshops and at Drop in Centers, where migrants can access counseling services and information about issues such as contraceptives and family planning.
Safe School Project
The Safe Schools Project seeks to empower and equip migrant children and migrant learning centers in the Mae Sot area with skills to adapt to the effects of climate change and respond effectively in the event of a disaster. The project operates through three migrant schools where workshops are held for the students once a month, covering topics such as school safety, earthquake, flood preparedness, water and sanitation, fire safety. Students learn life skills and how to make safety equipment out of everyday materials. In 2007, the three schools were the first migrant learning centers to develop a disaster prevention plan. The children attending the schools come from migrant families, many of which are living in rural areas along the Thai-Myanmar borders that are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters.