Hello Friends,

I will be traveling to Thailand at the end of December for around 5 months. During my time, I will be volunteering for Health for All Foundation - Burma Children Medical Fund (HFA-BCMF), a non-profit organization that provides access to medical care for people in need in Thailand and Burma border. Many patients supported by HFA-BCMF require specialized surgeries that cannot be performed in Burma or in the border town of Mae Sot, where HFA-BCMF is based, due to limited medical facilities. To ensure patients and their caregivers reach hospitals safely and on time, HFA-BCMF organizes dedicated patient van transfers to Chiang Mai for patients requiring the most medically complex procedures or to Bangkok for heart surgery.

Before I join HFA-BCMF, I am hoping to raise at least $6,000 to support 20 of these life-changing van trips.

In 2024, HFA-BCMF transported 540 patients and caregivers to Chiang Mai and Bangkok with 52 van trips to Chiang Mai and 20 van trips to Bangkok. The average cost per round trip for one of these van rides is:

7,500 THB / 250 USD - To Chiang Mai

9,000 THB / 300 USD - To Bangkok

Vulnerable people in Burma and Thailand often cannot afford surgeries themselves, while migrants, newly displaced asylum seekers, and individuals wounded in conflict face legal barriers to traveling and accessing treatment in both Burma and Thailand. Community-based and non-governmental organizations such as HFA-BCMF aim to fill this gap by providing access to healthcare for patients in both Burma and Thailand. The situation has been made worse by devastating conflict in Burma, combined with a healthcare system that was already consistently ranked among the lowest in the world, resulting in catastrophic conditions for civilians living in Burma. Due to the ongoing civil war in Burma, there are estimated to be almost 3.5 million internally displaced people and over 1,500,000 refugees (UNHCR, October 2025). The UN estimates millions of Burmese people to be in desperate need of medical care, and an estimated 2+ million Burmese people living in Thailand, unable to access the Thai healthcare system.

Learn more about HFA-BCMF on their website: HFA-BCMF or follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/burmachildren/

You can also see the stories of some of the patients HFA-BCMF supports here:

https://watsi.org/partners/burma-children-medical-fund

Thank you in advance to everyone who supports this mission of providing critically needed medical care.

About Burma:

Burma gained independence from British colonial rule after World War 2 in 1948 and began as a parliamentary democracy. In 1962, General Ne Win led a military coup and held power for the next twenty-six years. In 1990, following extensive student-led demonstrations across the country in 1988-89, free elections were allowed by the military, resulting in a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). However, the military refused to cede power and placed her under house arrest for 22 years. The process toward democratization finally began in 2011, and in 2015, Burma held nationwide elections, sparking hope for democratic progress. The results gave the NLD a supermajority in both chambers of the National Parliament.

In February 2021, the military launched a coup, returning Burma to military rule and shattering those hopes. Since then, the country has descended into civil war, with ongoing violence forcing millions to flee their homes and creating one of the world's most urgent humanitarian crises.