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Taipei Overseas Peace Service (TOPS), previously the Thai-Chinese Refugee Service (TCRS), is part of the Chinese Association for Human Rights, a Taiwan-based non-governmental organization (NGO). It was first founded in 1980 to provide emergency relief and development assistance for Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao refugees who suffered from the war in Indochinese Peninsula and poured into Thailand. After the refugees were settled back to their homeland, TCRS was restructured as TOPS to provide service further into other regions throughout the world.
From 1994 to 1996, TOPS conducted several service projects in Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda together with NGOs including Handicap International, Action Nor Sud and International Rescue Committee to improve the quality of water source and to assist physically challenged refugees.
Meanwhile, TOPS-Cambodia had been carrying out education programs on adult illiteracy and for school dropouts in Siem-Reap Province , Cambodia since 1995 to assist the post-war reconstruction. These projects were handed over to TOPS-supported grassroots organization KAKO in 2004 and have been conducted by this local organization ever since.
The current crew of TOPS-Thailand started in 1996, and has been providing educational assistance programs to refugee camps and community development projects to remote Thai-Karen villages along the Thai-Burmese border in Tak Province , Thailand.
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