The First Experience of Local Communities in Voting Their Two Representatives to the Salween Peace Park’s General Assembly
This film documents an exercise in genuinely representative democracy, where a man and a woman from each of the 26 village tracts in Mutraw District in Karen State will voice their community’s will and concerns towards realizing the dream of the Salween Peace Park. Following the launch of the self-declared peace park by Karen communities, leaders and civil society on 18th of December 2018, the process began of selecting community representatives to the committee that will govern and coordinate implementation of the work. In February and March of 2019 election meetings were held in each village tract within the boundaries of the peace park to choose the 52 community representatives in the Salween Peace Park General Assembly. The pair will be assisted by their village tract committee to bring local peoples’ needs and values into the administrative body’s work.