BambooSchool
18 FEBRUARY 2008 -- BONG TI, KANCHANABURI, THAILAND: A Christian Karen woman reads her bible while her grandson stands next to her in a refugee village near the Bamboo School in Bong Ti, Thailand, about 40 miles from the provincial capital of Kanchanaburi. Sixty three children, most members of the Karen hilltribe, a persecuted ethnic minority in Burma, live at the school under the care of Catherine Riley-Bryan, whom the locals call MomoCat (Momo is the Karen hilltribe word for mother). She provides housing, food and medical care for the kids and helps them get enrolled in nearby Thai public schools. Her compound is about a half mile from the Thai-Burma border. She also helps nearby Karen refugee villages by digging water wells for them and providing medical care. Thai authorities have allowed the refugees to set up the village very close to the border but the villagers are not allowed to own land in Thailand and they can't legally leave the area to get jobs in Thailand. Photo by Jack Kurtz
