Karen Border News


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The Karen state is cautiously emerging from six decades of civil war, following a ceasefire agreement between the Burmese government and the Karen National Union. In addition to monitoring the complicated human rights situation along the Burma/Thailand border, citizen journalists in Karen State are a crucial link for their local offline community to gain a basic understanding of the tentative ceasefire agreement, the terms of which are currently being viewed with much skepticism by the Karen community.

The Karen Student Network Group has been responsible for the only regular Karen Language news broadcasts (currently broadcasting on low-power FM radio in 5 refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border). KSNG's weekly radio program provides news, education, information, and entertainment for at least 30,000 refugee listeners in these camps. In addition to producing weekly radio broadcasts, KSNG also helps find educational opportunities for students, produces health and other relevant drama programs, and conducts leadership and management trainings.

This project will expand this news service by training citizen journalists to use podcasts in order to connect the voices of internally displaced Karen speaking people with the Karen community living as refugees in Thailand, as well as the increasing diaspora of resettled Karen refugees living in Canada, Australia, US and UK. By making this information on these topics available, both locally and online, the project hopes to keep the Karen community, who are rapidly being resettled to foreign countries, connected to their cultural and historical homeland.

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