Help Without Frontiers

Displaced children and young people along the Thai-Myanmar border have been affected by multiple crises in the last decade. COVID-19, the 2021 Myanmar military coup, and the subsequent civil war in Myanmar have all brought significant challenges to local communities. Research projects and informal reports from teachers and community members have shown that these crises are affecting the mental health and emotional well-being of children and young people from Myanmar in Thailand, which in turn can affect their physical health, relationships, and ability to study.

In order to assess the extent of this problem and to hear from children and young people themselves, Help Without Frontiers conducted a survey of 290 Migrant Learning Centre students in Tak Province. This report presents findings from the survey, in which students were able to share about the state of their emotional well-being, the impacts that positive and negative thoughts can have, and their confidence levels in talking to others about well-being issues. Importantly, the survey also sought to find out what kinds of activities and interventions the students themselves would find helpful to improve their emotional well-being. These ideas are also presented in the report.

This report is supplementary to an academic paper produced by Help Without Frontiers using the same survey data. The paper, titled “Contextualising emotional well-being for conflict-affected populations: A study from the Thai-Myanmar Border” was published in the 5th Issue of the Education and Conflict Review, May 2025, by the Centre for Education and International Development, University College London. The paper is accessible here: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207885/