This website is made by and managed by GBS students in order to empower them and let their voices be heard
What is Global Border Studies
Global Border Studies (GBS) is a three years program which provides education to students from Burma. The goal is to understand about human rights and ethnic conflict, to find ways to solve these problems, to become leaders in the future and to encourage their community to become more democratic by understanding and respecting human rights.
GBS is located in Nu Poe refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. GBS was founded in 2010 by World Education Thailand, Karen Refugee Committee Education Entity (KRC- EE), and Dunalalk Institute of Technology (DKIT).
GBS is a three years studies program where the students spend two years working on an academic with a practical aspect included. In their third year, they have the opportunity to work on developing further skills in their respective fields of interest. After they have done this part, they will get a certificate.
In addition, GBS accepts new students every second year. When GBS started there were only 15 students and two foreign teachers in the academic year of 2010-2013. Now in the academic year of 2014-2017, there are 20 students and two foreign teachers.
GBS Goal
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To prepare students with skills and enough confidence to work in all parts of community development organization.
GBS Mission Statement
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To be confident and have ability to solve the problems.
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To encourage our community to promote peace, equality and liberty in society.
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To be creative while becoming commitment leaders, able to think critically and constructively among diversity.
Academic year and internship year
In the academic year there are two main subjects in GBS. They are Social Science and community development & English Skills. Students learn about Understanding Ethnicity and the Colonization of Africa, Understanding Ethnic Conflict, Social Research, Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation, Peace Education, Community Development, Sustainable Development and the Environment. Moreover, there are some special activities such as tea-shop discussions, A Social Research Project, Field Trip, Community Service learning and Community- Based Projects. Moreover, students have a chance to learn about computer too which is Microsoft Office and Ubuntu Linux, searching methods by internet.
For the internship year, students have opportunity to apply their skills which they got from GBS to their community by joining with CBOs and NGOs. They can choose these organizations base on their interested. But for the students who already joined organizations they can go and work in their organization. They also have to write report on their activity that what they have done for the community in order to accept the certificate from GBS.
Who are the GBS students?
Students who study in GBS have different background as they are from different ethnic parts of Burma. In addition, they can bring many points of views in to the classroom and they can discuss it wildly. All the students in GBS are the future leaders who are going to change Burma into democratic country and bring peace for the hold different ethnicity in Burma.
In fact, GBS will only accept the students who used to work for their community, are good at motivation, have good behavior and who willing to work for their community. They all love each other as brothers and sisters and respect each other. Moreover, the students are living in peace even though they have different perspective from each other because when they have faced difficulties, they all come together and find the ways to solve those problems.
If you want to know more about each student, their goals and dreams, then press here