Ready for freedom: A Volunteer Testimonial from Elliot Billingsley

Ready for freedom: A Volunteer Testimonial from Elliot Billingsley

by karennisdc Comment Closed
This year, I had the privilege of teaching at the SDC for a short, 3-month term. The SDC is one of the best run community-based organizations on the Thailand-Burma border. It gives an opportunity for Karenni and other Myanmar refugees to gain the building blocks for a greater civil society. I am lucky to have been a part of it. At the moment, I'm traveling between Karen and Shan states to enjoy some of the best the country has to offer: gilded pagodas rising to the sky, lively tea shops on quiet streets, endless friendly encounters with the locals. Today I gazed upon the wondrous surface of Inle Lake.  I'm visiting a country where members of the SDC students call their own, but where few of them have had the chance to live freely. Myanmar, in isolating itself from the world, has alienated its people from their land. Now, as foreign tourists spur the construction of five star hotels and the...
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Lynette Nam’s Volunteer Experience

Lynette Nam’s Volunteer Experience

by karennisdc Comment Closed
Volunteer Experience By Lynette Nam In 2012, the long running conflict in Burma finally appears to be nearing its end.  An ongoing series of political, economic and administrative reforms undertaken by the military-backed government in Burma in the past two years has buoyed hopes that the decades of violence and international isolation could soon be in the past.  In this climate of hope and optimism, it may be easy to overlook the tens of thousands of refugees displaced on the Thai/Burma border.  Look beyond the news headlines, and it is all too clear that the recent developments, while promising, have not filtered through to all the ethnic states, where clashes between Burmese troops and local insurgents continue to disrupt the pace of life. It was against this backdrop that I travelled to a remote village next to Karenni Refugee Camp 1 in early October 2012, to work as a human rights trainer at Karenni Social Development Center (SDC). Karenni Refugees One of the many ethnic...
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