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| The strings Lotus McDougal (SPH’07) received at a Karen wrist-tying ceremony were for remembrance and good luck. She led health education workshops for two refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border. Photos courtesy of Lotus McDougal |
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Getting a master’s degree in inter-national health isn’t just about academics, as Lotus McDougal learned last year. It also means applying the lessons learned, a tempering of the ideal world of theory in the real world of conflict and hope.
As a six-month practicum for her M.P.H. at the School of Public Health, McDougal (SPH’07) helped run community health education programs in two refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border. She was working with the ethnic Karen people of eastern Burma, who have been waging a decades-long struggle for independence from the military rulers of their country. Thousands have fled to refugee camps on the Thailand border.
McDougal assisted in training a staff of 90 camp residents, who were responsible for disease control and health education for 35,000 refugees. “I led trainings for these health educators, giving them information that they would then use to lead discussions in the community,” she says. “We also emphasized capacity-building for our refugee staff, offering leadership and management training and facilitating language courses.”
The work also involved monitoring and evaluating the programs, run by the American Refugee Committee in Thailand, to make sure they were effective.
While some of the Karen refugees want to be resettled abroad, others hope they will be able to return to Burma, despite recent gains by the Burmese military, which renamed the country Myanmar in 1989. (The Karen people, and many others, still refer to it as Burma.)
Despite the artificial conditions in the camp, the refugees were able to maintain some of their traditions and culture, McDougal says. During an annual celebration to remember their ancestors and wish one another luck in the coming year, the Karen have a tradition of tying string to their wrists as a sign of remembrance. The Karen people invited McDougal to the ceremony, tying her wrist with red and white strings, which symbolize courage and purity.
On her last day, McDougal, dressed in Karen clothing, was given a farewell party. Her smiling staff walked with her to the gate of the camp, expressing their affection. The people in the refugee camps, she says, “are among the most welcoming, intelligent, positive, and open-minded that I have met.”
