The Facebook page of the Faculty of Social Policy & Development Thammasat University has posted information inviting students to participate in a seminar on Wednesday, 7 April 2021 from 4:30pm – 7:30pm.
The seminar discussion will be on the Post-coup Challenges in Myanmar: Implications for Social Welfare and Social Development.
The event will be held at the Faculty of Social Administration, Room 205, at Thammasat University, Tha Prachan Campus and online by Zoom.
Students are cordially invited to register at this link:
The Thammasat University Library collection includes an extensive choice of books about political and cultural aspects of life in Myanmar.
In addition, the TU Library’s research databases offer up-to-date information to help readers understand recent historical developments in Myanmar.
The discussants at the 7 April event will include Assistant Professor Naruemon Thabchumpon, PhD, of the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. Dr. Naruemon is a specialist in comparative politics, democracy and civil society, and migration and refugee issues, politics of human rights, human development and human security, participatory democracy and sustainable development.
Dr. Naruemon earned a bachelor of arts degree in politics and government at the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, followed by a master of arts degree in government from Chulalongkorn University. She also earned a master of arts degree in democratic studies at the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, United Kingdom, where she also received a PhD in politics and international studies.
Last July, she spoke at an online panel discussion about Inequality, migration and Covid 19 in Thailand and the Mekong Region.
Also speaking will be SPD lecturer Dr. Victor Karunan.
The website of The International Institute for Child Rights and Development, a Canadian-based charity affiliated with Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia that draws on diverse partners and intergenerational practitioners by working with communities to ensure that young people have the support required to reach their full potential, notes that Dr. Karunan
has worked 16 years with UNICEF, as Regional Advisor on Participation and Partnerships at UNICEF Regional Office in Bangkok, Chief of Adolescent Development and Participation in UNICEF Headquarters in New York and as Deputy Representative and Senior Social Policy Specialist in UNICEF Malaysia. He was the Regional Development Advisor for Save the Children-UK at the Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. He has over 35 years of professional experience in over 40 countries in both the industrialized and developing countries, with special focus on South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. His work relates to supporting governments, United Nations agencies, international development organisations, NGOs and civil society and private/corporate sector in Human Rights programming, Results-based Management, Social Policy, Public Finance, Adolescent Participation and Development, Policy Advocacy, Participatory Research, Training and Capacity Development. He has worked as a Development Evaluation Consultant for European donor agencies and has conducted research, evaluations and training programmes among community organizations and NGOs in over 15 countries in South and Southeast Asia. He is a founding member of the Focal on the Global South – a policy research programme of the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute in Bangkok and is currently Senior Visiting Lecturer in the M.A. and Ph.D programmes in International Development Studies at Chulalongkorn University and in Human Rights, Democratization and Peace Studies at Mahidol University in Bangkok. He holds a M.A. in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences from the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. He has taught Child Development, Human Rights and Development Studies at the Asian Social Institute in Manila, the Philippines, the Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands, SIPA-Colombia University and New York City University Brooklyn College, and Nottingham University and HELP University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Another speaker will be Mr. Saw Eh Htunt, originally from Hpa-an, Karen State, Myanmar, who is currently studying Social Policy and Development at Thammasat University.
The event’s moderator will be Dr. Sorasich Swangsilp, Deputy Director of Academic, Student and International Affairs of SPD.
Dr. Sorasich earned a BA in Political Science (International Relations), Chulalongkorn University, followed by an MA in Political Science (European Studies) at Sciences Po Grenoble, France, and an MA in Governance of the Institutions and the Organizations
(International Cooperation and Development) at Sciences Po Bordeaux, France, concluding his studies with a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.
He teaches Political Science, Language and Politics, International Relations, and International Development.
As all TU students know, the situation in Myanmar, as the Associated Press has reported, is a matter of grave international concern in the ASEAN community and beyond:
Thai authorities along the country’s northwestern border braced themselves Monday for a possible influx of more ethnic Karen villagers fleeing new airstrikes from the Myanmar military.
Myanmar military aircraft carried out three strikes overnight Sunday into Monday, according to Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian relief agency that delivers medical and other assistance to villagers. The strikes possibly injured one person but caused no apparent fatalities, a member of the agency said.
Earlier Sunday, an estimated 3,000 people crossed the river dividing the two countries into Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province following two days of aerial attacks.
Video shot that day shows a group of villagers, including many young children, resting in a forest clearing inside Myanmar, having fled their homes. They carried their possessions in bundles and baskets.
In Sunday’s previous attacks, Myanmar military aircraft dropped bombs on a Karen guerrilla position in an area on the Salween River in Karen state’s Mutraw district, according to workers for two humanitarian relief agencies.
Two guerrillas were killed and many more were wounded in those attacks, said a member of the Free Burma Rangers.
On Saturday night, two Myanmar military planes twice bombed Deh Bu Noh village in Mutraw district, killing at least two villagers.
The attacks may have been retaliation for the Karen National Liberation Army, which is fighting for greater autonomy for the Karen people, attacking and capturing a government military outpost on Saturday morning.
According to Thoolei News, an online site that carries official information from the KNU, eight government soldiers including a second lieutenant were captured in the attack and 10 were killed, including a lieutenant colonel who was a deputy battalion commander. The report said one Karen guerrilla had been killed.
The tension at the frontier comes as the leaders of the resistance to last month’s coup that toppled Myanmar’s elected government are seeking to have the Karen and other ethnic groups band together and join them as allies, which would add an armed element to their struggle.
The airstrikes mark an escalation in the increasingly violent crackdown by the Myanmar government against opponents of the Feb. 1 military takeover.
At least 114 people across the country were killed by security forces on Saturday alone, including several children — a toll that has prompted a U.N. human rights expert to accuse the junta of committing “mass murder” and to criticize the international community for not doing enough to stop it…
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)