Anna goes to Thailand : International Women’s Day and “Can Do” bar

The past couple of weeks have flown by. After the Symposium in Bangkok I was busy working on the donor report for Toyota Foundation. Writing the donor report was very useful, as I had to go through all of the documents, Power Points and minutes from the Symposium, giving me a great overview and recap of the week-long event. I also believe that this experience is useful for future work and involvement with donors.

One of the most exciting events after coming back from Bangkok was the International Women’s Day. After work Jess, Plaii and I rushed off to join MAP Foundation and The Women Exchange marching through town. We all had pink t-shirts, singing “women, women, rise up, rise up” (to the melody of We Will Rock You) in English, Thai and Burmese. My friends Hulda and Espen also joined us; Espen being one of the very few men in the march. I have not marched on International Women’s Day in many years, so it was such a great experience seeing so many women rising up together, having fun and taking over the streets in Chiang Mai. The marching women (and men) ended up outside Tha Pae Gate where people gave speeches, showed dance routines, sang and had fun. This was by far the most unique March 8 I have ever experienced.

The week following International Women’s day was also very busy, with lots of things to do both at work and after work. I continued working on the donor report and before sending it off, my colleague Jess had a look through, edited it and gave me tips and advice on how to make the language of the report much more direct, conveying the same information in a much clearer way. One of the greatest parts of my stay here has been the fact that I keep learning so much from my wonderful colleagues, about migration; about Thailand; about other Mekong countries; Chiang Mai and more.

Jess, who is on an Australian volunteer program, has a lot of friends from the same program based in Chiang Mai. So in the week after International Women’s day she brought me to several dinners with all the other Australian volunteers. We went to some lovely restaurants and some great bars. One of the bars we went to is run by one of MMN’s member organisations, Empower, working with sex workers in Chiang Mai. “Can Do” bar is owned and managed by a group of sex workers from Empower and it all began in 2006 when the founders decided to create a bar owned by sex workers for sex workers. Any sex worker who contributes to the community fund at “Can Do” bar becomes part of the collective ownership. I really enjoyed the bar and I got a little tour around the building where they also have a drop in centre, classroom and lounge for sex workers. I find Empower’s work very interesting and I would recommend people to have a look into their work.

On the weekend we also visited a bar called Gossip bar in the centre of the Old City. Gossip is a great little Jazz bar, with jam sessions on Friday nights. One of Jess’ friends got up and played the trombone along with loads of local musicians. So the past couple of weeks have been very busy, with lots of fun things happening. My next post will be about our second trip to Bangkok for a consultation meeting on MMN’s project on Climate Change and Migration.