TBBC is a registered charity in England and Wales, a consortium of twelve international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from ten countries providing food, shelter and non food items to refugees and displaced people from Burma. TBBC also engages in research on the root causes of displacement and refugee outflows. Programmes are implemented in the field through refugees, community based organisations and local partners.

With increased focus on a rights based approach, the organisation is committed to meeting international humanitarian best practices.

The organisation is based in Bangkok, Thailand with field offices in Mae Hong Son, Mae Sariang, Mae Sot and Sangklaburi. 

TBBC currently employs 38 national and 15 international staff.

[Rev: Nov 07]

History of TBBC

The beginnings - CCSDPT
The Committee for the Coordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand (CCSDPT) was set up in 1975 in response to the influx of refugees from Indochina following the Vietnam War. Initially an NGO response, the Royal Thai Government (RTG) immediately recognised it as an appropriate vehicle through which to administer and control humanitarian assistance. All NGOs providing assistance to the Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees became members and, at its peak, CCSDPT had over fifty member agencies. CCSDPT’s main activity was to hold monthly meetings that were attended by the member agencies, representatives of concerned Thai authorities, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and other international organisations, plus donor embassies and other interested parties. The meetings became an important forum for information sharing as well as the coordination of services.

Karen refugees began arriving in early 1984 and, on 27/28th February, the MOI invited CCSDPT members to two briefings in which they requested NGOs to provide basic humanitarian assistance. A decision had been made not to involve UNHCR or the international community, since this was expected to be a short-lived problem and the MOI wanted to avoid creating any draw-factor. NGOs were asked to provide food and medicine only, nothing of a developmental nature, nothing which would encourage new refugees to come or stay any longer than necessary.

The problem was relatively small and the refugees were quite self-sufficient. In the early years just three main NGOs were involved, Medecins Sans Frontiers (together initially with Medecins Du Monde and Monaco Aide et Presence) who provided medical services and TBBC and the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees (COERR) who covered food assistance and other miscellaneous support. CCSDPT set up a Karen sub committee in April 1984 to coordinate activities and report to Thai Ministry of Interior (MOI). When Karenni and Mon refugees started to arrive in 1989/90 the name of the Karen Subcommittee was changed to the CCSDPT Burma Subcommittee. 

As refugee numbers began to increase other NGOs began proving assistance informally and in 1994 MOI officially extended the NGO mandate to include sanitation and education services. Since then, MOI has gradually allowed the education mandate to expand, including vocational training and agricultural projects. From 1997, CCSDPT has been working almost exclusively with Burmese refugees and today there are twenty members.

The CCSDPT still holds monthly information sharing meetings and has health, education and environmental health infrastructure subcommittees. It also has additional coordination meetings with UNHCR including a protection working group and NGO/ UNHCR/ International Organisation (IO) meetings.

[Rev: Oct 07]

CCA
At the March 1984 CCSDPT meeting several individuals reported that they had already visited the border and had distributed some small-scale assistance. In response to MOI’s briefings on February 27/28th, members were invited to join a field trip to Mae Sot on 5/6th March to assess the situation and how to coordinate assistance. The party comprised Seventh Day Adventist World Service, World Vision, Mennonite Central Committee, and Jack Dunford at that time representing Church of Christ in Thailand . This group reported back to a meeting at Christ Church on 7th March which included Christ Church , Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship (TBMF), and ZOA. It was during this field trip and subsequent meeting that TBBC (initially the Consortium of Christian Agencies, CCA) was established. It was agreed that TBMF would open a bank account and that everyone would try to raise funds to support the Consortium programme.

The MOI expected the refugees to return after three months when the rains came and so none of these organisations expected to be involved for long. There were no formal agreements, no criterion for membership, convening meetings or making decisions. The CCA met immediately after CCSDPT Karen Subcommittee meetings and anyone could attend and join in consensus decision-making. There was no long term budget or funding plan, individual members would simply chase funds and hope that enough would come in. It continued this way until 1989 before the first coordinated appeal was made for US$950,000 for 1990. In 1991 TBBC recruited its first administrator, until then all the accounts having been compiled by the chairperson. The name was changed to the Burmese Border Consortium.

[Rev: Oct 07]

BBC
The programme grew inexorably and BBC had to start getting better organised. The first six-month report was written in 1992, the first professional audit carried out for the 1992/3 financial year, and the first external evaluation was undertaken in 1994. Meetings were still held informally however, with no official membership and no minutes.

In 1996 the system was under stress. The programme had now reached US$8 million with grants being received from eleven governments, but funding was coordinated at a personal level by the chairperson. BBC faced its first major cash-flow crisis. It was decided to call a donors meeting and to draw up BBC’s first ever “Structure and Regulations” (S&R) which set out requirements for membership, procedures for meetings and the duties of the board and director. The first donors meeting was held in Amsterdam in October 1996, hosted by Dutch Interchurch Aid and ZOA. For the first time donors were asked to “pledge” their support for the next year. The S & R were approved and became effective 1st January 1997. Jack Dunford vacated the Chair to Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) and became full time director. The board comprised the country representatives of five member agencies, Church of Christ in Thailand, International Rescue Committee, Jesuit Refugee Service Thailand, Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship and ZOA Refugee Care Netherlands.

Since then there have been annual appointments and an elected chairperson. Under the 1996 S & R, an Advisory Committee was elected by the Annual Donors Meeting to represent them between meetings.

Since 1996 there have been annual donors meetings and BBC’s programme has continued to grow and become more sophisticated. By 2000 BBC’s Advisory Committee was concerned that the management of BBC was over-stretched and the governance system too weak for such a large operation. As a result a Governance and Management Structure evaluation was carried out in February / March 2003. This recommended clearer separation of the governance and management functions, and a strengthening of BBC’s middle management.

[Rev: Oct 07]

TBBC
During 2004 BBC recruited new staff to strengthen its organisational structure and, after an exhaustive consultative process, it was agreed to register BBC as a Charitable Company in the United Kingdom under the name of Thailand Burma Border Consortium.

The current five members of BBC plus five new members all subsequently agreed to join the new legal entity and a mission statement, a new Memorandum and Articles of Association and Bylaws were drawn up as the legal framework of TBBC. In early 2006 Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship withdrew its membership after serving as a member since the beginning.

Under the new structure the TBBC members meet twice annually at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and the Annual General Meeting (AGM). A new Board is elected annually at the AGM with a minimum of five members and a maximum of eight.

Trocaire joined TBBC at the 2007 AGM and Gandhiji Cultural (Bermania por la Paz) joined at the 2008 AGM.

[Rev: Nov 08]

Members

The current 12 members are as follows:

Caritas, Switzerland
Christian Aid, UK and Ireland
Church World Service, USA
DanChurchAid, Denmark
Diakonia, Sweden
Gandhiji Cultural (Birmania por la Paz), Spain
ICCO, Netherlands
International Rescue Committee, USA
NCCA Christian World Service, Australia
Norwegian Church Aid, Norway
Trocaire, Ireland
ZOA Refugee Care Netherlands

[Rev: Nov 08]

Donors

When the NGOs first visited the border in 1984, they understood that they would have to fund any activities themselves. Since the Thai Government had made a decision not to involve the UNHCR there was no international funding mechanism. All of the agencies represented on the first field trip that led to the setting up of TBBC were from Christian organisations and, each “member” committed to try to raise money from its own constituency. The initial funds therefore came exclusively from Christian organisations and churches.

Very early on the Baptist Union of Sweden applied for Swedish government funds and for the first few years TBBC was funded by this combination of church and Swedish government funding. After the democracy uprising in 1988 Burma received more international attention and TBBC’s programme was growing too big for church funding. Other TBBC donors began requesting government funds and over time these became TBBC’s main source of funding. In 2008 TBBC’s governmental funds come from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, European Union, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States of America. It was always the consortium’s philosophy to seek money from as many donors as possible as an insurance against changing priorities/ capacity within individual donors, and to meet ever growing demands of the programme. The CCA changed its name to BBC in 1991, which also broadened its funding appeal to other kinds of donors.

Over the years many governments have asked TBBC why they continue to channel funds through TBBC’s partners in their countries, rather than direct. TBBC’s answer is always the same. TBBC prefers to do it this way firstly because it reduces administration demands on TBBC, with the national organisations taking responsibility for any specific reporting needs and day to day contacts, particularly important where these need to be in other languages than English. But second, and equally importantly, funding through national partners engages them also in advocacy on Burma/refugee issues as well as giving TBBC potential access to human and other resources. The general model therefore is that national NGO partners still request funds from their governments on TBBC’s behalf and channel the funds accordingly.

Although most of TBBC’s funds are now institutional, it still continues receive funds from individuals and churches. For the TBBC staff these contributions are often the most encouraging and uplifting. They are the responses of people moved by the situation and who are putting their own money into the programme.

During 2007 TBBC has been developing its website to offer donors a variety of ways to support the programme. This is set out in our Donation pages.

[Rev: Nov 08]

Staff

TBBC began its work in 1984 without any staff. A Seventh Day Adventist missionary offered to purchase rice and, unwittingly, effectively became BBC’s first field coordinator. Jack Dunford became chairperson of BBC from May 1984 and acted as de facto director until 1997 when he officially became full-time director.

In 1985, a young CCSDPT intern was sent into the field on a volunteer’s stipend, renting a house in Mae Sot and hitching lifts to the camps with whoever would take her.

The first large influxes of Karenni and Mon refugees arrived in 1989 and 1990 respectively  The Karenni camps were supported from Mae Sot (a mere three hundred kilometres to the south!) and a programme for the Mon and some Karen refugees was set up in Sangkhlaburi.TBBC’s first administrator set up office in a corner of CCSDPT in 1991.

An office was set up in Mae Sariang in 1995 to cover the growing number of Karen and Karenni refugees in Mae Hong Son province.

Remarkably then, TBBC recruited just seven staff in its first eleven years (but a maximum of four at any time, plus the two early volunteers and its part-time chairperson) but had established four offices, and was taking care of over eighty thousand refuges in about twenty five camps.

The rest, as they say, is history. As the programme expanded, offices were opened in Kanchanaburi and Mae Hong Son and since 1995 TBBC has employed another 77 staff making a grand total of 88. Of these, 55 are still currently employed, demonstrating remarkable loyalty and long-term commitment.

[Rev: Oct 07]

Vacancies

Field Data Assistant

In partnership with camp and wider CBO structures, facilitate the implementation of field-level programme activities specifically the monitoring the food and non-food supply and population figures in  refugee camps in Kanchanaburi Province along the Thailand-Burma border, one full-time position located in Sangklaburi.

Requirements:

• High School Diploma or equivalent certification
• 2 years experience with humanitarian organisations
• Understanding of the political, social and cultural environment along the Thai-Burma border, especially in Kanchanaburi province
• Good communication and analytical skills (written and spoken)
• Strong Thai, Karen and English. Mon and Burmese an asset
• Able to work both autonomously and within a team
• Able to travel to 2 refugee camps in  Kanchanaburi province
• Solid computer skills with a strong requirement for data entry skills (Excel based programming a must)
• Able to handle administrative, documentation and filing tasks

Job Description and TBBC information available at website : www.tbbc.org.
Submit resume, cover letter and references to fifi@tbbc.org or fax (034) 595296

by Friday, December 12th, 2008.