Beyond Burma: Lessons in hope for refugee children

An estimated three million Burmese citizens were in exile during the dictatorship, the vast majority slaving as undocumented migrant workers in Thailand and throughout South East Asia.

Around 350,000 Burmese fled to the Mae Sot border city area, where most lived in sprawling refugee camps and struggle to feed, clothe and educate their children.

The Mae Sot region has around 70 migrant schools that  spontaneously started to meet the needs of the 30,000 children who have crossed the border from Burma. The students are a mix of refugees and economic migrants. Of this number only 7000 are currently attending these schools. The schools range in size from 20 to over 650 students. These schools receive no support from the Thai government and rely solely on resourcefulness and international support.

Founded in 1999 by head teacher U Khaing Oo Maung, the Boarding High School for Orphans and Helpless Youths  has been famous for offering a good education.

Julián Gómez del Castillo



On 10 October, 1924, Julián Gómez del Castillo was born to a working-class family devoted to the ideal of justice in the destitute Spain. His father, following in his grandfather’s footsteps, member of that militant PSOE, died in jail at the time of the bourgeois Second Republic.

Capitalism robbed him of his childhood. At an early age he started working, he soon joined the fight for social justice, and together with his siblings and other children, were able to obtain funds for strikes. He sometimes remembered that being a child, he used to steal into the prison to take newspapers to his father.

Being young, he converted to Catholicism and was christened. Since then, fight for justice and Christian life were embodied together in him. In the Christian militancy he met Trini, a workwoman, and they joined their lives in Christian marriage. Later, they had four children and several miscarriages.

At that time, his devotion to the Christian ideal of justice materialised through the promotion of culture centres.  By the mid-40s he met Guillermo Rovirosa and the HOAC and joined the group of converts who strengthened the organisation. Together, they launched the newspaper “Tú” (“You”), which Franco decided to ban and close down. Those militants gave back hope to an absolutely dejected and humiliated working-class. Workers’ centres, courses, informative leaflets, incursion in the vertical Union…, every means was tried to take up the torch of historical solidarity among the poor again. While PSOE started their placid holidays in exile and gave up the militant promotion in Spain, Julián was mercilessly persecuted by Franquism and was even imprisoned and put under surveillance.    

Julián Gómez del Castillo

"Love to others cannot be measured by my possibilities but by their needs."

Julián Gómez del Castillo

10/10/1924-29/10/2006



Solidarity Youth Path’s "Operation: Awakening”

Solidarity Youth Path proposes a campaign that will culminate in a great March against Child Slavery throughout Spain in 2014. The first part of the campaign is called Operation: Awakening.

With this video they invite all young people with a solidarity spirit of goodwill to join this unavoidable cause.

Not even a single child slave in the world! This is not one more problem. This is not mere sentimentality. The tragedy of child slavery is the glaring proof of the institutional dis-order we are in. "Operation: Awakening" is a strong commitment and determination of political action to reveal the inviolable dignity of the human person, and therefore, of any child or young person.

Do not hesitate to get in touch with this organisation if you are interested in getting more information.

Operation: Awakening: against the causes of Child Slavery, Unemplyment and Labour Exploitation!

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