Transcript of comments made by Mr. Anthony Aris on the occasion of his visit to the Foundation for Education and Development (FED) on 13 February 2012 at FED’s offices in Khuk Khak, Phang Nga Province, Thailand. He founded Serindia Publications to focus on bringing Tibetan history and culture to modern audiences. He is the identical twin brother of Michael Aris, husband of Burmese political leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

“…my wife and I have had the great privilege in the last few weeks not only to be in Burma itself to see schools there and to get a feeling for what is happening, but it is extremely interesting for us now to see Burma from the migrant perspective in Thailand. It’s a fascinating comparison. We see great hope in Burma. There’s undoubtedly a feeling of a new dawn. We see the struggle for education clearly. We were privileged to visit one of the schools recently opened by the NLD [National League for Democracy] in a very poor community south of Rangoon [sic]. We see the struggle of parents to be able to send their children to school there. Some kids first have to go to the pawnshop, the moneylender in order to have enough money to bring back to their parents so they have a daily supply of food. Then they go to school. We noticed that many children in Burma are malnourished and we found it very difficult to understand how you could learn anything on an empty stomach. Now there’s a great movement in Burma for schools attached to monastic institutions. We feel that this is perhaps the main future for the educational system in Burma because every village is close to a temple. You have an amazing possibility of recruiting teachers from 400,000 monks. The cost of that will be insignificant to the founding of properly run state schools. We find now the brightest kids go from these NLD schools into the mainstream of education and do very well. I feel that, given support, the educational system in Burma could really take off very fast given adequate support.

Now we see the educational system of the migrant community and we are equally impressed. If we understand that there are 4 million migrants in Thailand, a significant proportion of the nation, and that the kids now are getting access to effective education. In fact, probably better than anyone receives in Burma. So if we are looking long-term, these kids from the migrant community will have a terrific amount to contribute to their motherland. I feel that now of course Burma is opening up, so many NGOs and charitable foundations are looking directly to Burma. Well, I feel maybe that could be shortsighted. I think that really at the moment there is a basic infrastructure for helping education among the migrants and I think that NGOs should look very, very carefully, especially in terms of the long-term future of education.

In any case, we’ve had a fascinating time here in a matter of hours. We’ve learnt a great deal. Firstly, we’ve learnt that there is every effective leadership from FED that has become the very epicenter for not only education, but basic health, women’s rights, and care for the truly sick and care for women’s groups. It’s become actually the focus of the community and we feel that, whatever happens in Burma, this enterprise at FED has a terrific, bright future, not only for the community here, but certainly back in Burma.”