Durangoans seem to be beating a path to Southeast Asia.
Durango High School graduate Alyssa Paylor, 24, has spent most of the last two years on a fellowship through Volunteers in Asia. She’s been teaching GED diploma preparation and social studies to young women refugees ages 17 to 24 who fled Myanmar, formerly called Burma, and ended up in Chiang Mai, Thailand. More than 20 of her students have passed the GED test.
“Some of them have spent a good portion of their lives as refugees,” Paylor said, “and others are migrant workers, so I would call them economic refugees.”
Myanmar was ruled by a military regime between 1962 and 2011, and the country still struggles with ethnic strife. According to the Human Development Index of 2013, the country has one of the lowest levels of human development in the world.
Paylor is in town on a short visit with her parents, Dan and Amy Paylor, and she has brought a documentary called “We women,” about the emerging women leaders in Myanmar, to screen.
“I don’t personally know the women in the film, but they are women who worked within their own communities to effect great change,” she said. “I want to raise awareness of not only Myanmar, but the women of Myanmar.”
The screening is co-sponsored by the Shanta Foundation, which works with several villages in the mountains of Myanmar, and the Women’s Resource Center as well as the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, where it will be held.
While the screening is free, donations will be accepted for a scholarship fund to help young women from Myanmar continue their educations.
Tricia Karpfen, co-founder of Shanta, said there will be an extra treat at the event.
“Hlim Na, a freedom fighter from Myanmar in the ’88 revolution, has the sushi franchise at City Market and will be at the event,” Karpfen said. “She is shy to speak; however, I believe she will have a few words for the gathering. As a woman who fought for the freedom of her people, she has a very personal experience of taking a stand to improve the lives of all.”
Paylor, a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, is returning to Chiang Mai to complete her two-year commitment then will move to Yangon, Myanmar’s capital, in August for another year.
“I’ll be working in a program of peace studies, building positive relationships between students with different religious (beliefs) and ethnicities,” she said.
Based on the news coming out of Myanmar, those relationships will be important for the future of the country.
abutler@durangoherald.com
If you go
“We women,” a documentary about the women of Myanmar, will be presented at a free screening at 7 p.m. today at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, 419 San Juan Drive, southwest of Needham Elementary School.
The film, produced by a nonprofit of the same name in Chiang Mai, Thailand, follows the development of women leaders in Myanmar and examines the importance of access to education for women.
Donations will be accepted to go to We Women’s Scholarship Fund to help women and girls from the Southeast Asian country get bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
For more information, visit http://on.fb.me/U95r1s or call 903-0803.
