Summer Issue, 2012

Follow Your Heart Carl Browne (Internship Programme Co-ordinator, Faculty of Social Sciences) In 2008, an e- mail changed Carl Browne’s life forever. “I was a politics and law student in the UK and was about to graduate,” Browne says. “Then I got an e-mail from my university saying if you want to go to Myanmar for the summer, send this person an email.” Browne’s MOEI journey began with an email to Professor Ian Holliday, then Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at HKU. “I knew absolutely nothing about Myanmar back then,” Browne says. “It was the first year when MOEI launched. Of all the MOEI participants, I was probably the least informed.” He was sent to the Myanmar refugee camps alongThailand’s border with Myanmar, populated mainly by Karen refugees, and became fascinated by the people and culture he found there. Browne stayed in Nupo refugee camps, sharing rations with residents, then moved to Mae La camp to teach English.Three years later, Browne is funding a new school in Mae La Oon camp so that more of the children there can receive an education. “I never thought of going back to London,” Browne says. “The only reason why I left Mae La last month for Hong Kong is because I am managing things for MOEI. I am still connected to Mae La and Nupo and I still get to go back.” When asked why he is so passionate about working with the refugees, Browne says he is simply following his heart. “In the refugee camps, you wake up in the morning and you are in the middle of a jungle. The food is basic, you eat two meals a day and you wash your bucket every day. People respect each other.There is a strong sense of community. Everyone is well cared for.” “My three-year experience there was amazing,” Browne says. “If I’m 70 or 80 and have a few breaths left, I can say I’ve had more experience than any of my friends who sat at offices doing banking for five years.” An Unforgettable Experience EdwardTsoi (Psychology and Politics,Year Two) Edward Tsoi, a second year social sciences student from Hong Kong, joined the MOEI programme in summer 2011 and was sent to Mae Sot, a town in Thailand bordering Eastern Myanmar that receives many refugees from the Karen tribe. “I was shocked by how cruel the reality can be on the other side of the same continent,” says Tsoi, who taught refugee children English in Mae Sot. “I had this student. He’s 14 years old, not even five feet tall. He told me his mum was killed in the civil war between his Karen tribe and the military regime. He has no siblings and his dad is away in Bangkok to earn a living.” Tsoi also recalled his shock when he assigned students to write a composition on the subject of “An Unforgettable Day”. “Unforgettable it was, for me to read what was written,” Tsoi says. “My simple lesson became complicated when I got the assignments back. There was a ninth grader who described the day he saw his friend die right in front of his eyes – shot by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.” “They think it’s normal because it happens so often,” he says. “This was the most shocking of all, to believe that it is common to see family and friends get killed every now and then.” For Tsoi, his unforgettable experience with the young refugees was the beginning of a new journey. “There was a bond,” he says. “How could there not be? I did not want to leave, I want to do more for them.” He started planning what became HKU’s “Connecting Myanmar” programme, which will do more than teach the refugees English. “We have architecture students, journalism students, nursing and medicine students,” he says. “We can build schools, report news, and help with health education.” 5