Using a community-based and human-centred approach, Sermpanya Foundation provides refugees, migrants and other vulnerable populations living on the Thai Myanmar border with accessible education and information concerning their health, their safety, their rights and mental and physical well-being, and raises awareness of issues which encourage positive behaviour change to help protect and improve their lives.

Operating at a primarily grassroots level Sermpanya Foundation is able to reach those who are living vulnerable lives by nurturing the talent, creativity and diversity of young refugee filmmakers and producing films which bring educational storytelling to communities in a language and culture that is readily accessible, understood and enjoyable.

Through video and digital media campaigns created and disseminated in collaboration with refugee communities, our programme has been able to reach 93,000 - 150,000 refugees annually over the past 10 years as well as over 10,000 students learning in Migrant Schools on the Thai Myanmar border and over 6,000 villagers living in Thai/Karen villages and in rural Karen State in Myanmar. We have reached aggregate audiences of over 900,000 people with over 4,000 mobile screenings. Media Training courses empower the refugees to learn film related skills which will allow them to create films with stories in their own voice and culture which can are then shared with their communities to raise awareness and provide education on important topics which will benefit their lives and bring hope as they face the future.

Background

Responding to the needs of refugees displaced by over 3 decades of conflict along the Myanmar Thai border, FilmAid Asia was set up as a registered charity in 2011 in Hong Kong, by a dedicated board of philanthropic business leaders and entrepreneurs. Supported by their generosity and an annual fundraising Power of Film Gala, FilmAid Asia’s Thailand programme was able to serve nine refugee camps situated along the Thailand Myanmar border for over 8 years.

In July 2019 FilmAid Asia passed its assets and operations to our Sermpanya Foundation here in Thailand. Sermpanya Foundation was registered in 2015 to allow our programmes to operate beyond the refugee camps and to include migrant communities, ethnic Thai Karen villages and cross border villages in Karen State, Myanmar. As the word FilmAid did not translate meaningfully in Thai language, Sermpanya Foundation was chosen as the foundation’s name and means ‘sharing wisdom, encouraging knowledge’

Our programme methodology is based on the operational model created by FilmAid International, the founding organisation which was set up by independent filmmakers in response to the refugee crisis in Kosovo in 1999. After two decades of innovation, FilmAid has become an international leader in sharing life-saving information and education to communities in need, providing skills training in the media arts and amplifying the voices of displaced youth by building confidence and hope in those who want to build a better future. FilmAid Kenya supports a comprehensive training and production programme in the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps in East Africa as well as projects in the slums in Nairobi. To meet the challenges of the future in a world where there are ever more refugees and displaced communities, FilmAid International has joined forced with Internews in 2020 giving a unique opportunity to extend FilmAid programme activities in other countries around the world.