HSA THOO LEI ORPHANAGE

Mae Sot (Thailand) - September 2018

The sun burns the skin as, on board a songthaew, I arrive at the Hsa Thoo Lei orphanage on the outskirts of Mae Sot, a border town between Thailand and Myanmar, a crossroads of both legal and illegal trades.

In 2018 – years before the civil war that broke out after the 2021 coup – hundreds of Karen children and young people were fleeing the violence of the Burmese army and found refuge in this structure run by Naw Paw Ray, a tireless woman who turned her life into a mission to provide education and dignity to those who otherwise would have had neither future nor voice.

Even today, within these walls, among games, songs and lessons, life continues to endure beyond the border, with the desire to one day return to their own land.

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