A slim chance of education

Columban Fr Neil Magill founded the Mandalay Archdiocesan Higher Education Centre on the outskirts of Mandalay, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).
The Centre aims to prepare some of the poorest but brightest Myanmese students by providing high quality tertiary education. The aim is to help them achieve their potential and become leaders in both their civil and church communities.

Fr Neil shares the stories of two of the students...

Fr Neil Magill at the refugee camps, Kachin State. Photo: Fr Neil Magill SSCFr Neil Magill at the refugee camps, Kachin State. Photo: Fr Neil Magill SSC

Patrick

Patrick, a first year student is from the war torn Kachin State in the northern part of the country.

While the Kachin State is rich in natural resources it has been exploited by the military and the Chinese but none of the profits have reached the people.

Patrick and his family are among the many thousands of victims. He and his parents and four siblings were forced to flee to a refugee camp when their simple home was burned down and their small piece of land was confiscated by the military. The few pigs they were rearing to generate some income for the family were killed and eaten by the military as they ravaged their village.

Patrick’s mother leaves the refugee camp where the family now resides early in the morning to work outside doing 3 Ds work (dirty, dangerous and difficult) and returns in the evening. She earns $75.00 for a month’s work. How can she feed her family on this? Patrick’s father suffered from poor health for many years and was unable to work.

Last year, Patrick, his mother and siblings suffered another blow. Their father went out one morning walking to visit a friend. He did not return to the refugee camp that afternoon. When Patrick’s mother returned from work at dusk she raised the alarm. Her children and others in the camp went searching for him but could not find him. At sunrise the next morning they found him among bushes beside the road. He was dead. He had been shot by the military. An innocent man.

Patrick shed many tears as he told me this story. He was concerned that his mother could not make the small contribution to the Higher Education Center that we ask for.

I assured him that he had enough problems and difficulties in his life and I would look for a scholarship for him as I do for many of our students.

Peter

Peter is a third year student and he wrote about Internally Displaced People (IDP).

My name is Peter and I am a third year student at the Higher Education Center (HEC) in Mandalay. We get two weeks holiday during the academic year but most of the 90 students at HEC cannot go home because our homes are so far away from Mandalay and it is too expensive to travel. It can take two days to reach our homes in remote villages.

Fr Neil discussed with us what we might do and we all agreed that we should spend the holiday time with children in orphanages and in the IDP camps in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. The purpose of our trip was to offer assistance to those in the camps and experience first-hand the mission of the church there.

At the orphanage in Myitkyina we spent half a day playing games with the children, teaching them songs and dance and just getting to know them. There were hundreds of children who didn't even know where they came from or who their parents were. Holiday time for them offered no break from the camp; they didn’t have a home or parents to return to.

We visited other IDP camps that housed children and adults in small simple small houses which were built very close to each other. They had poor sanitation and up to eight people lived in one room. One old woman said, "Yes we can stay here under shelter and we don't need to worry about the guns shooting. But how can I feel happy here. This is not our real home and we just come here because we want to stay alive.”

Reflecting on my visit to the IDP camps I consider myself fortunate in having the opportunity to study at the Higher Education Centre thanks to the Columbans and their benefactors. After graduating, I hope to show my gratitude by working as a teacher in the IDP camps.

Fr Magill says, "I ask the students if their parents or relatives can make a contribution of $100.00 for one year but many cannot. I do not turn anyone away because they cannot make a contribution."

The cost to educate one student is $700 per year. This covers food, accommodation, electricity, books and medicine.

Columban Fr Neil Magill has worked in Korea, on the General Council in Ireland and now works in Myanmar.

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