To empower migrant women population to gain knowledge and understanding on issues such as women's rights, labor rights and human rights by providing space and reading materials and services.

Libraries Programs

During the process of educating and empowering women, BWU established four libraries that became helpful and practical educational resource centers for migrant workers, especially migrant women. These libraries have been operating for the last few years, offering resources on women empowerment and capacity building.

Aims and Objectives

• The library aimed to create a chance for a reading materials and space for the migrant workers who came from Burma due to variety of difficulty and the effect of civil war to the ordinary life of the people of Burma.
• The library aims also targeted to get the outcomes of changing the society way of thinking in favor of patriarchy system, which dangerously hinder the development of women lives by using different tools to empower, educate and mobilize the migrant women especially to came up gradually and to participant in the struggle to change society perspective and stereotype that ties the thinking and practices into women as subordinate people.

Library is opened everyday except on Mondays and Tuesdays. When it was opened in 2002, readers from 12 factories became regular lenders. Then in 2005, the regular readership was expanded to 23 factories, together with women from democratic groups and vendor workers. There are one coordinator and one staff who take in-charge for both the sit-in and mobile library activities with 10 part-time staffs (one per each in ten factories) who act as BWU part time staffs and take care of the rotation of the in-house book renting in their respective factories.
 
The libraries have been successful in fulfilling the needs of migrant workers by providing reading materials or resource and reference books, organizing discussion, short days training on different topic respectively about women issues and human rights. The library is important place for reaching out to BWU members, women from other organizations, and to the migrant worker community. Each month women from the community get together to share experiences take part in discussions and exchange information. Discussion topics are chosen by the library staff (two BWU members run each library) and also by the attendees, and focus on women's issues, health education issue for especially for teenage girls and other areas of their interest and concern. 

The libraries have three active full time staffs, one staff take responsibility of general management of the library, writing reports, collecting survey, take record of the people who came and rent the books, another staff responsible for organizing discussions, training, workshop, deliver the books to the migrant workers who don't have time to come to the library, and the third staff is a health educator.

As for first initiative, the staff persuades and tries to know the publications that interest most by the migrant workers and help that to get reading practices and be familiar with the books that will attract to the women particularly to read more and more books. In order for the women to be intelligent and to have variety of knowledge from the advance books, such as related to women, political analysis and world issues. Moreover they will need to understand and practice the right ways in regards to reproductive health and other health related issues that will protect the lives of women not to get infected from incurable diseases such as HIV/AIDs. The library will assist the women migrant workers in respective areas to meet each other have a conversation to get insight about the lives as migrant workers, reason of crossing the borders, difficulties they may encounter while working in Thai soil, and also provide information about the organizations that are helping migrant workers and as for long term vision the library is eager to see the foundation of migrant or labor organizations. BWU wants the migrant women to be part of the resource person for rebuilding future democratic federal Burma.

Due to the previous years of library service to the migrant community in Mae Sot, Ranong in Thailand, Ruali and Liza in China, as a result, Burmese women and men who are working on different type of works saying that they are very satisfied with the service that the library is providing for them. They have access to various kinds of knowledgeable books concerning every aspect of Burmese people's lives. Although they cannot go back to Burma, they still feel that they are always close to it because of the books they can get from the library. Moreover, women have enough self-confidence or self-esteem to talk in front of the public or among fellow women and express their desire of talks. Some of them are even taken action by leading some of the conversations. They knew how to relate the information they are reading to their own lives.