Monthly food basket: $100 or $500
TBC has provided food to refugees along the border since 1984 to people who back home in Burma traditionally cultivated rice and vegetables, raised their own livestock, hunted animals, foraged leaves and roots in the forest and obtained salt and fish paste to meet their food needs . In Thailand they are confined to the refugee camps and are unable to support themselves and their families. Formerly self-sufficient people are faced with a reality in which they must depend heavily upon aid to meet their everyday needs, including food.

TBC’s food assistance is distributed in the form of a monthly food basket to supply the refugees’ basic energy, protein and micronutrient needs according to international standards. Rations are provided on a per person basis, with different ration amounts for certain foods for adults and children under five years of age. The monthly food basket includes vital staples such as rice, AsiaMIX (a fortified flour containing micronutrients), fish paste, iodised salt, mung beans, cooking oil, dried chilies and sugar.

As refugees have become increasingly dependenton the monthly food basket distribution to meet their needs for food, maintaining the rations has become one of TBC’s long-standing primary goals. A gift of $100 will provide a year’s worth of food to a refugee from Burma, while a gift of $500 will feed an average family of five for one year.

Read more about The Border Consortium’s Monthly Food Basket.