March 2020 was the start of the changes that were a result of Covid-19. At Borderline this led to a massive drop in activities and sales. At first we acted as if things were normal, using some of our savings to fill the gaps that were a result of those drop in sales. What we …
Thantlang in Chin State, Hpakant in Kachin State, Hlaing Thar Yar in Yangon became household names since February 1. Moso, Hpruso in Karenni State was unknown until last week. And now we learn about Lay Kay Kaw, Mae Thaw Talay and Palu. Thousands of people are forced to leave their homes and run to safety …
Today the news in Mae Sot is dominated by the fighting that takes place not so far from here. A village that is purposely build to house people who spend decades living in refugee camps has come under attack by the same forces who were responsible for the atrocities which turned the people into refugees …
History repeats itself so often it must be easy at school Read More »
Our latest job description read like this: “Your duties are the same as the rest of the staff”. Instead of 4 pages of all the small duties a prospected employee is expected to perform to avoid a potential future argument whether a required task was part of the job description, new staff is required to …
Choosing a name for an organisation, a business or a collective often is an exercise in brainstorming, collecting, eliminating, drafting, discussing, more collecting, drafting, eliminating, planing, sandpapering, deciding, changing, until at some point that name that always had to be the name was discovered, unearthed, brushed off, polished, and put on a letterhead. In 2004 …
With support from VSO and the skills of Bordermedia, wo got ourselves a beautiful website around the middle of 2008. At around the same time the world started to get attached to facebook and instead of using our website to communicate, we posted more on facebook than we did at our website. It is similar …
It is hard to decide whether Mae Sot is getting busier or not. At Borderline we have welcomed old friends who have returned after a period in exile. Several years ago, a part of the Mae Sot community decided they could be of more use for Burma if they lived in Yangon and slowly we …
The Mae Sot entry in the 1999 Lonely Planet reads as if Prince’s Party did result in Y2K really being the end of an era. None of the Guest Houses mentioned exist anymore and if you look for the places to eat, you will go around hungry, they have stopped serving. There is mentioning of …
As a not-for-profit it shouldn’t matter if business is good or bad, surprisingly it does. When Borderline started in 2004, the founders could not have predicted the future. Not our current situation with lock-downs and restaurant closures, not the years prior when Borderline was a financially healthy organisation. The successful years and the decisions to …
