Background of the Organisation:
The Mirror Foundation is a non-governmental organisation established and registered in 1991. It has been working to provide assistance to ethnic minority peoples in Thailand in the area of human rights in general and personal legal status.
The group’s relationship with tdh began actually in 1992. Tdh supported a small project that tried to reflect problems caused by large scale development projects. Activities supported by tdh included camping activity and drama for children living in the shadow of large dams. The organisation was established by young people originally in Bangkok and moved to Chiang Rai Province in 1998 to do rural development work, especially for ethnic groups. In Chiang Rai, its primary focus was providing alternative education for children. Upon doing so, it found that ethnic minority peoples in the project area are stateless people. Not being Thai citizen, they face so many problems, such as difficulties to access formal education, health care and other services provided by Thai government.
From 1999 onwards, tdh has supported its ‘Thai Nationality Mountain Children Project’. In the past, Mirror Foundation has continuously carried out nationality issue-related activities until it is now being recognised by concerned government agencies at policy level, especially the National Security Council and the Ministry of Interior’s Local Administration Department, independent organisations, such as the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, and other NGOs.