ATL

Welcome

Lesley Ward is the national president of ATL

This year at ATL's Annual Conference, Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers' Association (CITA), spoke to us about the difficulties facing trade unions in his country. In September, I awarded Aung San Suu Kyi (in her absence) with honorary life membership of ATL, to help remind the Burmese government that she is still in the public eye.

Following this, during the October half-term, representatives of ATL visited Cambodia and Thailand. Thanks to a grant from the Trades Union Congress and the Department for International Development, international coordinator Phil Jacques, international officer Joseph O'Reilly and I were able to visit Cambodia to give CITA advice and encouragement, and to visit a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand.

In Cambodia, a teacher earns 80 cents (US) a day. Corruption is rife throughout society, and the first lesson a child learns is that if they do not pay their teacher a bribe, they will not get taught. Many teachers also need to have a second job in order to survive, and so cannot adequately prepare for the teaching they do. I was humbled when I realised that the one-dollar tip I gave in a restaurant was more than a teacher earns in a day.

We visited the largest and oldest refugee camp in Thailand, home to 45,000 Karen refugees. I was shocked into silence, but also full of admiration that the people there could keep going on in the face of such hardship. Our guide had already seen her father murdered and both she and her sister are facing assassination threats - just for belonging to the 'wrong' ethnic group.

It made me realise how lucky I am.