The Terres Karens association

Terres Karens is a non-profit association of 1901 law that supports solidarity projects within the Karen populations in Thailand. The association gathers former volunteers from the Foreigners Missions of Paris and the association Enfants du Mékong. They all lived in Thailand between six months and one year, mostly in the Tak province. By joining the association, they wish to continue to engage themselves and to ensure the sustainability of the projects. Strengthen by their experience, skills and knowledge of the field, they develop new initiatives in the Karens villages.

A dozen of volunteers in France and two or three volunteers in the field in Thailand are currently working for Terres Karens.

Le Board

Charlotte de Montagu

President

MEP volunteer, Charlotte has spent one year in a student center in Kamphaeng Phet. Charlotte was the Terres Karens President from 2012 to 2014.

Pierre-Yves Peurois

General Secretary

MEP volunteer, Pierre-Yves spent 6 months in Ponouaypou in the Tak region where he was an animator in a primary school. He graduated from a Master of Expertise in Population and Development at the Paris-Descartes University where he wrote two theses on the Karens.

Sophie Vincent

Treasurer

A team of volunteers in France

To assist the board team, some volunteers returning from volunteering in Thailand work together on the sustainability and development of Terres Karens. They help to develop the sales and to grow future project as well as the cooperative and the workshop. Indeed, the sewing workshop of Mae Woei Clo is the first but not least and some more development are yet to come.

Marie Depoitevin

General Delegate

The Thai team

Coordination of the Thaï projects of Terres Karens

He coordinates and supports the development of the projects in the field. He lives in a youth center in the town of Mae Towo. His main missions are to make the link between Thailand and France, to manage the different orders and the routing of products. In the shadow, he is the hinge of all the projects.

Bleshry

Responsible for the sewing workshop and the cooperative village Mae Woei Clo

Bleshry joined the project in 2012, as the responsible of the sewing workshop in the village of Mae Woei Clo. Besides her studies, Bleshry is in charge of the TK project’s management. In 2014, she also became co-responsible of the weavers’ cooperative in the same village, working closely with a volunteer. The volunteers who succeed each other in the village train her in computer science and English.

The association’s origin

Alexis Balmont created the association in 2010. It quickly federated young students and volunteers from the Foreign Paris Missions and from Enfants du Mekong, either in the field or returning from a mission. The association firstly supported the development of a first project in the village of Mae Woei Clo: the weaver’s cooperative. In France, the association won numerous prizes and competitions, which enable the association to gain financial resources and develop its projects. In 2012, the association created the sewing workshop. Claire Scaramus, a French designer, trained the first four weavers. One year and a half later, a young Karen, Bleshri, was trained to the project’s management and the workshop became independent.

In 2015, the association helped the cooperative to participate in the international ethnic market of Santa Fé in the USA to promote the Karen weaving expertise.

Finally, in 2016, Terres Karens launched a new weavers cooperative in the village of Ponouaypou with three Karen women. From France, Terres Karen’s designs, orders fashion products as well as decoration items, mainly sold in France, but also in Germany, or in Singapore.

Besides the development of these economic projects, Terres Karens has been collaborating and supporting others projects since 2014 (electrification project in 2015, construction in 2016) and charity activities (Operation Giving Tree, Christmas 2015).