Providing opportunity through education

WUSC volunteers enjoy a day in the Annapolis Valley picking grapes.

It’s hard to concentrate when your country is in turmoil. Thein Gi Shwe, a student from Burma, has been juggling her studies at Dalhousie while keeping track of happenings at home. She arrived in September, her journey sponsored by the Dalhousie society, WUSC.

WUSC, or World University Service of Canada, is a network of people and post-secondary institutions whose mission is to foster human development and global understanding through education and training. Through its Student Refugee Program (SRP), WUSC has sponsored refugee students every year since 1981. SRP is the only Canadian program that links refugee settlement in Canada with post-secondary education.

“The Dalhousie chapter of WUSC is focused on overseeing these students’ orientation into society and university life, as well as helping them register for courses and showing them around Dal and Halifax,” says Julia Keech, chair of Dalhousie’s WUSC chapter.

“Every year, a $1.50 from the student levy pays for the first year of tuition for these students, as well as books and board,” she adds.

Ms. Gi Shwe is one of the two sponsored refugees this year. The 21-year-old student is from Karen Mae La, a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. She is enrolled in a general BA program and hopes to go into health sciences next year. Although now in Canada, she remembers well the difficulties of life back home.

“There was no work; we weren’t allowed outside the camp,” says Ms. Gi Shwe, during an interview in the Student Union Building. “(I was) unable to go to school where I was.” No Internet or library either.

“I like it here because I have access to everything and housing is better,” she says, smiling.

Burma, officially the “Union of Myanmar,” has come under a media spotlight recently after Buddhist monks and other Burmese citizens began protesting the sudden rise in fuel prices brought on by the ruling military junta. Tension escalated after the unarmed monks, dressed in saffron-colored robes, and other protestors were insulted, injured and arrested by soldiers who opened fire on the demonstrators. In the past few weeks, hundreds of other protesters have been detained and tortured.

“The government has said some bad things to the monks,” says Ms. Gi Shwe. Monks are highly respected in Burma. A large percentage of the Burmese population is Buddhist and relate to the monks because they have friends or family in the order.

As the repression in Burma continues, Ms. Gi Shwe is hopeful her family will remain safe.

“They are in a refugee camp and UNHCR (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) looks after them well, but I am worried that the Burmese soldiers might come across the mountain range and shoot at the camp. That’s happened once.”

Ms. Gi Shwe has been busy with WUSC since arriving — there’s a lot to do. Even with funding from the levy, every WUSC group across Canada needs to raise at least $2,000 to provide direct academic and personal support for student refugees. This year WUSC volunteers headed to the Annapolis Valley to pick grapes.

Across Canada, WUSC expects to welcome its 1,000th sponsored student in the 2008-2009 academic year.

Aspiring writer Stephanie Smith is majoring in international studies.