Sea Gypsies, South Thailand

Seagypsi Day Care

The Sea Gypsies in the Andaman Sea in Ranong Province are a people group that call themselves Moken. They live on the sea between Burma and Thailand. Since most Sea Gypsies have no citizenship they have less legal rights than third class citizens making them vulnerable for all kinds of possible exploitation.

After the Tsunami in 2004 the Moken people did not receive a lot of initial emergency assistance in Thailand from official government agencies since they were not registered Thai citizens. To find more information about the Moken people, visit this page: Wikipedia  (Moken)

Shortly after the Tsunami we assisted various Moken communities with disaster relief aid. After considering their past and present status we decided to help 3 settlements on 3 different islands by providing each one with a day care centre. Other NGO organizations provided settlements with houses and respective land titles. Through these efforts many Moken people started to settle down and are now being issued Thai citizenship.

Citizenship allows them to obtain Thai medical care with legal rights (less prone to exploitation) affording their children attendance to government schools where they receive official graduation certificates upon completion.
The Day Care centres are an important stepping stone for the small Moken children mainly due to the fact that by learning the Thai language, these children will be on par with Thai children entering Thai government run schools gaining the same advantage as Thai children.

However since they are still Sea Gypsies and the sea has changing seasons demanding different activities throughout the year our attendance at all 3 projects fluctuates from 50 – 100 children. There are many difficulties in working within their gypsy culture, but we trust that the children attending will greatly benefit from their new found Thai language skills in the future.