BRC has approximately 10 staff, including individuals from the Karen and Shan ethnic minorities. The Director is Pippa Curwen; staff include Christine Harmston, who was Executive Director of the Canadian Friends of Burma. They have some international funding from NGOs, and they support work by health providers, education work, media training and youth organizing as well as emergency food distribution.



They have joined other NGOs in ongoing meetings with UNHCR regarding refugees from both Karen and Shan states in Burma. They reported ongoing difficulties with the UNHCR lack of recognition for Shan as refugees. Since there has been a long tradition of migrant workers in agricultural areas, it becomes difficult for some authorities to see this is different. Reports indicate as many as 1,000 a month coming into the Northern Thai agricultural regions to escape the Burmese army.



They provide emergency rice for newly arrived refugees or those who are struggling. This requires a lot of work with community leaders since they need a contact point (the community leaders are usually Shan with some Thai identification papers). Some of the emergency food relief has also gone to help the Chin on the Indian border of Burma.



BRC activists were also coordinating distribution of information about the Salween River Dam project. This is being developed with Japanese corporate funding in partnership with a Thai company called GMS and the Burmese. The environmental impact will be phenomenal since the river runs through the middle of the Shan, Karen and Mon states. The flooding behind the dam will be extensive and the downstream impact on fishing, wildlife and traditional drainage patterns will also be extensive-widespread environmental, social and agricultural disruption is predicted. The electricity produced will be excess capacity which makes it a particularly pointless mega-project.