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Tag: Thailand

Witness the Struggles in Mountain Areas

Written by Ness Ma (Communications Officer) Many tribes live at the country’s border in Northern Thailand, mostly farmers. Because of poverty, many of them have never received a good education or learned any effective farming method. They live in mountain basins and receive no services or support from the government. In addition to the worsening extreme weather events because of climate change, river floods in rainy seasons cause soil erosion, and droughts lead to a lack of water sources. Both circumstances affect the harvest. To continue farming, farmers have to purchase more chemical fertilisers, increasing their financial burden and damaging the lands. CEDAR Fund has been supporting Upland Holistic Development Foundation (previously Upland Holistic Development Project) since 2013

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My Plastic Reduction Action – after the CEDAR’s Exposure Trip 2018

Banner Image: Sarah Hong (far right) Written by: Sarah Hong (Participant of CEDAR’s Exposure Trip 2018) The world God first-created was in a stable and balanced peaceful condition, which illustrated Shalom. He gave us the responsibility to manage the land. Yet, we failed our task, destroyed the land and its eco-system and caused a lot of problems, such as climate change. I joined the CEDAR’s exposure trip to Thai-Burmese border and rural northern Thailand in December last year. During the trip, my companions and I visited UHDP [1], CEDAR’s partner. UHDP understood God’s heart for reconciling relationships between human and other aspects, including the nature. Therefore, they adopted an agricultural principle that can sustain development, protect the nature and reconcile

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‘Hill Tribes’ Blood is in My Veins.’ – An Advocate Walking Alongside Marginalised Hill Tribes

Written by: Lai Ka Chun In mid-2018, a junior football team and their assistant coach were rescued after 18 days in Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. Their 25-year-old coach’s care in the cave was indispensable. This incident made the coach a hero in Thais’ hearts. However, this coach was originally stateless, as well as the other 3 boys, who had no Thai citizenships. According to UNHCR, there are about 480,000 stateless people in Thailand, and most of them were living in remote mountainous area near the border. As they belonged to no country, they could not enjoy the rights of education, healthcare, employment, and social security as other citizens. Even though they lived

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2018 CEDAR’s Exposure Trip Sharing: All Things Bright and Beautiful

Written by: Janice Cheng (Participant of CEDAR’s 2018 Exposure Trip to Thai-Burmese border and northern Thailand, church pastor) All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small. All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. These are lyrics from a classic children hymn called All things bright and beautiful. I looked it up on the internet, you will discover the songwriter’s intention was to explain the first sentence of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Participants of this trip to Thai-Myanmar border came from all walks of life, including rookies in the workplace, retired people, pastors, Christian organisation’s staff, and seminary teacher. This combination enriched our

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When Poverty Becomes a Sin

Banner image: The author (far right) and other trippers visited ethnic minorities in northern Thailand Written by: Janice Cheng (participant of CEDAR’s exposure trip in 2018; church pastor) In December last year, I went to the Thai-Myanmar border with CEDAR to learn about their poverty alleviation projects in the area. The 8-day trip enabled me to understand more about the region. We visited some villages with CEDAR’s local partners and spoke to various individuals during our time there. The residents are mostly ethnic minority groups from the mountainous areas, and they all have their own predicaments to overcome. There are abandoned single mothers and minority groups who have been relocated to the border area in northern Thailand due

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The Letter from CEDAR | September 2018

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Hope you had a blessed summer. My wife and I were invited to share on the handling of conflict in parenting at a fellowship group in our church few days ago. We shared about the struggle parents are facing. In Hong Kong, we do all we can to prepare our children for a successful life. This often means completion of higher education, successful career, better living environment, etc. However, less attention is paid to prepare the little ones for transforming the world. In June and July, other than the World Cup, the world’s attention was captured by the Tham Luang cave rescue. We were thankful that all 12 boys and their coach

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Human Trafficking

Author: Jojo Poon Martha (obscured) spent her early years with her mother who worked as a sex worker in the red-light district of Mumbai, India. “At the age of 16, my mother met a guy when she was in Nepal. He said he could refer her to work at better places in the cities, and she ended up being sold to work at the red-light district in Mumbai.” With the help of a generous woman from her hometown, Martha was spared from having to suffer the same fate as her mother’s. “Every one of us could fall prey to human traffickers with a tiny change of situation,” as expressed time and again by the frontline workers serving sex

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Environmentally Sustainable Development in Thailand

Written by: Jojo Poon What is “development”? What kind of development will lead to better living? In what way will go by contraries? We might be able to find out more from the experience of the farming tribes in Northern Thailand. The aftermath of the Green Revolution The Lahus settled in the mountains in Northern Thailand as a result of a multi-generational search for farmable lands in the areas spanning across Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. They were caught in the Green Revolution[1] in 1960 when the Thai Government encouraged the farmers to focus on growing new types of valuable plants with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that boosted their yields. The Lahus started to homogenize the crops they grow and

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