[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

I will be sharing my personal story:

“I am Paw. I am an ethnic Karen person. I was born in a jungle of Southeast Asia in Karen State, Burma. I was born as a stateless person in my homeland. Because of conflict and war in the country, by the age of 6, my family and I left Burma to move to a refugee camp in Thailand. I lived in a refugee camp for 13 years, in a complete isolated from the rest of the world. My refugee camp was just a very simple and basic life, no electricity, no road, no transpiration, no running water and internet/phone. The most challenging was no freedom and we were not allowed to leave our refugee camp. If we were outside our refugee camp, I had to afraid of Thai military and police everywhere. So, I decided to move the U.S. as a refugee when I was 18 years old in 2008. I didn’t speak English and knew nothing about the U.S. It was not easy in the beginning, but I just had to live through it.”

For this personal experience, I want to share few things about resilient and as a human we are really capable of more than we think we are. Resilient doesn’t mean we have to overcome all your challenges in life, be so strong and be taught so you’ll survive. In my personal story, as a refugee, stateless person, minority ethnic group, and immigrant, wherever I went or moved to somewhere new, I just always faced a discrimination and injustice but I don’t think I am alone in this, I think we all faced some challenges and difficult moments in life because we are all human.

Being resilient is living my best every day through whatever life throw at me.

Ex. From the age 6 years old, I already told to clean my house, by the age 8 years old I already had to cook for my family, which I’ll have to start from getting wood, getting water, getting vegetables that I had to grow myself from my backyard, getting water from the river, to making faire and cooking. This is the way how I grew up and I had to adapt to it so that I could grow up with all these experiences, this is being resilient to me. You learn and you pick up whatever you have been giving, and you make the best of it.

Being resilient is living in the moment…

Being resilient is always have hope, hoping for a better thing to come

Being resilient is you just have to keep going no matter what, it’s almost like you can’t just give up yet…

Being resilient is knowing that you are not alone, there is family, friends and community around you… you are not experiences all of these alone… there are others and they can also support you as you can also support them, it’s a community…