Karen News website
Karen News is reported and written by Karen journalists to provide information on issues that shape Karen communities in Burma and around the world.
Karen News provides a window to Burma and the international community on what is happening in Karen state. Our journalists live and work in Karen communities, know the issues that affect Karen people and aim to bring those issues to the attention of people across Burma, in the diaspora, and to all readers interested in the struggles and triumphs of the Karen people.
Bordermedia was asked to design and build a new website for the Karen News team which would present a professional image to the outside world while enabling the Karen News team complete control over the content of their site. There was also a strong emphasis on ease of use so that the Karen journalists could post stories in a matter of minutes so that their time was spent concentrating on content rather than technical know-how.
Burma Labour Solidarity Organization website
The Burma Labour Solidarity Organization (BLSO) is a worker and human rights advocacy group operating on the Thai/Burma border in Mae Sot, Thailand. Established in 2000, for the past 10 years the BLSO has been working tirelessly to improve the situation of Burmese migrant workers and their families living on both sides of the Burmese border.
Bordermedia was asked to design and build a new website for BLSO, and some basic training to allow local staff to maintain their own website. The site was built using the popular WordPress system – allowing local staff to continually update news items, blog posts, current reports and maintain their photo gallery.
Aiya Burma Fund website
Aiya Burma Fund is run by Myat Thu, a Burmese student activist who has been working towards change in Burma since 1988. He has spent most of his life working with volunteers from Burma. After the devastating Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in May 2008, he directed his efforts to helping Burmese cyclone victims due to the delay and failure of international aid to reach the victims. Aiya Burma Fund has been providing aid inside Burma in various ways.
Bordermedia was asked to design and build a new website for the Aiya Burma Fund, and some basic training to allow local staff to maintain their own website. The popular CMS WordPress system – traditionally a ‘blogging’ platform – would fulfil Aiya’s requirements for an SEO-friendly and easily maneagable content management system that would not be too challenging for the non native English speaking employees to learn and use.
Weave website
WEAVE (Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment) was founded in 1990, with the intent to empower indigenous women and support their needs and basic human rights. The organization has evolved over the years, especially in the context of the influx of refugees from Burma.
Bordermedia was asked to design and build a new website for WEAVE, and follow this up with a day’s training in Chiang Mai. It was again decided that a modified WordPress system – traditionally a ‘blogging’ platform – would fulfil WEAVE’s requirements for an SEO-friendly and easily maneagable content management system that would not be too challenging for the non native English speaking employees to learn and use.
Borderline Collective
Borderline is a Café, Shop & Gallery based in Mae Sot, Thailand. Borderline began with three women’s organisations seeking to establish a shared marketing space for women from Burma (living along the Thai-Burma border) to sell their hand made items. The women’s groups also hoped that by having a collectively managed market they would build their capacity for running income generation projects with the communities with which they work. In May 2004, the Borderline Women’s Collective opened.
Bordermedia was asked to design and build a new website and online shop for Borderline, in such a way that it would only require 2-4 days training for the local staff in Mae Sot to be able to update the website themselves. It was decided that WordPress – traditionally a ‘blogging’ platform – would fulfil these requirements. WordPress is powerful enough to act as a simple Content Management System, and yet simple enough for people with little or no web design experience to be able to use to update the website themselves with the minimum of training.
Web development training
Web development classes were conducted for Curriculum Project comprising students from Curriculum Project and BVP over the course of 2 months. From this training, the students were then able to be actively involved in the development of their own website.
Curriculum Project work with post-high school (Post-10) schools along the Thai/Burma border and work with teachers and students to design curricula and materials, and also provides teacher training and teacher support programmes.
The purpose of the website is to provide these materials in an easily accessible online format.
Bordermedia was approached by the organisation Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in August 2006 about facilitating a series of computer training courses for Burma-related women and youth groups based in Thailand.
The courses would take place between October and December 2006, in three locations in Thailand; Mae Sot, Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai.
It was agreed that the first courses would be focused on Basic Computer Maintenance and Security, with a view to introducing one or two key staff members from each of the approximately 35 organisations, to the main course topics listed below.
- Implementing preventive measures on PC components
- How to keep computers safe from humidity
- Basic Hardware troubleshooting
- Backups
- Windows XP System Restore functions
- Operating system updates
- Removing unwanted programs
- Disk Management
- Viruses
- Spyware/Malware
- Firewalls
- User accounts and security
- File security
- Browser and internet security
- Advanced topics (Computer & program freezes, Blue Screens, What to do when Windows XP won’t start)
The intention would then be that these key staff members would then take responsibility for securing and maintaining their office computers. The groups were kept small – 8 people per group – and were mainly comprised of students from the following ethic groups; Karen, Kayan, Palaung, Pa-O, Arakan, Karenni, Kachin, Lahu, Shan and Mon.
