Wisconsin Students Provide Aid Through Higher Education

Since 1962, hundreds of thousands of families and individuals have fled from the military dictatorship that has ruled over Myanmar to Thailand to escape the human rights violations inflicted upon ethnic minorities. In Thailand, they are denied political refugee status, but allowed to live within tight districts of constraint with very few rights. They are “stateless” and have no legal bond with any country. This means that they are denied the right to vote, travel, own property, have access to education and healthcare, or work legally.

Stateless children are denied entrance into classrooms and are unable to receive a formal education (K – 12). Even those whose parents enroll them into “free” schools operated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) do not ordinarily make it far in their education. Around the third or fourth grade, stateless parents pull their children from school to work or to be sold. Young stateless girls are aggressively targeted by traffickers to be exploited and parents wrongly recognize these offers to sell their daughters as an opportunity. The Thai government estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 children under the age of 18 are in the commercial sex industry in Thailand alone.

Due to their statelessness, even with a high school diploma these children will never be able to work legally. Access to a college education is an impossibility. Without education, there is no hope for change. Stateless populations are trapped within a cycle that continues to repeat itself from one generation to the next. Children are stripped of their youth, robbed of their potential, and left without any dream of a future.

In August 2005, Joseph Quinnell, an undergraduate art student at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point (UWSP), began photojournalistic research on the issue of statelessness. During his initial trip to Southeast Asia, Quinnell began a friendship with stateless children cared for by the Development Education Program for Daughters and Communities (DEPDC) in Mae Sai, Thailand. He also became friends with its founder, two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and CGI member Sompop Jantraka.

During Quinnell’s first day visiting the school, a DEPDC volunteer was giving him a tour when a group of children suddenly ran past. “Those children do not exist,” the volunteer said, “They have no papers, no birth certificates. They are illegal immigrants in every country. They are not allowed to attend grade school, high school, college or work legally. These children are not even allowed to dream.” Outraged by what he had learned, Quinnell returned to the U.S. and partnered with Susan Perri, an undergraduate graphic design student, to co-found The Thailand Project. In 2009, Joseph and Susan made a CGI U Commitment titled “The Thailand Project: Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid” which aims to create hope for at‐risk children in Southeast Asia by fighting against statelessness.

Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid obtains and secures basic human rights (Thai citizenship and/or travel documents) by partnering nongovernmental organizations in Thailand with American universities that agree to grant scholarships to stateless individuals who are barred from earning a degree within a Thai university. This unprecedented scholarship to study abroad challenges the Thai government to acknowledge the stateless recipient as a valuable participant in society and to authorize freedom of movement, enabling the individual to study at an institution of higher education within the U.S.

With permission granted and the freedom of travel gained, the scholarship recipient begins his or her academic studies abroad, supplying hope to those with similar backgrounds. Furthermore, Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid provides proof to parents that their child’s education is the key to progress, that education will remove barriers and that the Thai government will recognize that their children are more valuable as Thai citizens than as prostitutes or migrant laborers.

Since August 2005, the Thailand Project’s Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid pilot program has grown from a concept into a reality. During the first three years (from August 2005 to July 2008), stateless scholarship candidates Srinuan Saokhamnuan and Fongtip Boonsri were selected by Jantraka, and international cooperation was established between the Thai and U.S. governments in order to gain travel documents for both recipients to study abroad. Within two months of receiving her scholarship, Fongtip Boonsri was granted Thai citizenship and a passport. Boonsri was stateless for 19 years and was the first stateless person to receive citizenship under current Thai law. Srinuan Saokhamnuan, still stateless, was granted unprecedented permission by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to not only travel to the U.S., but re-enter Thailand after her studies are complete. She is the first stateless individual to ever receive such permission. On August 24, 2008, Boonsri and Saokhamnuan flew to the U.S. The following day, they began their English as a Second Language classes at UWSP.

Since the summer of 2006, Quinnell and Perri have secured over $295,000 in private donations, waivers, and grants. As the Thailand Project concludes its pilot program, work is underway to raise the remaining $120,000 still needed for Boonsri and Saokhamnuan to earn their undergraduate degrees. After graduation, both Boonsri and Saokhamnuan will return to Thailand to work with NGOs across Southeast Asia that fight human trafficking, statelessness, and child exploitation. Boonsri, a psychology student, will provide counseling services for stateless children who have been or are at-risk of being abused or trafficked. Saokhamnuan, a communications and public relations student, will use her English language skills and P.R. degree to educate the global community through international media about the connection between statelessness and human trafficking, highlighting the efforts to combat these issues.

The Thailand Project is now officially a nonprofit organization, fiscally sponsored by the Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin. Quinnell and Perri hope to utilize the connections they’ve made through CGI and CGI-U to aggressively replicate Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid – creating new scholarships for stateless youth through the partnering of NGOs around the globe with universities across the U.S. To target new university partners, they are currently planning a lecture tour which will challenge students to use their skills and abilities to help other people and emphasize that they do not have to wait until after graduation to change the world, they can do it now.