It began as a simple vocational project inside a refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border. The dream was to make the Burmese Youth Project into a vocational training program that could become self sustaining and one that the refugees could run themselves. . Due to the politics of operating inside a refugee enviroment this turned into a more complicated endeaver then imagined. However, two years after the Burmese Youth Project began, it became refugee run and directed. The majority of the projects,such as art, pottery, and sewing are self-sustaining.